


rock, meet hard place

by asongtofixwhatswrong



Series: [placeholder title for jonelias abuse recovery mundane au] [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (both internal and external), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canon Asexual Character, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recovery, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Coercion, Slut Shaming, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:55:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 38,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26283778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongtofixwhatswrong/pseuds/asongtofixwhatswrong
Summary: Jon and Elias are sleeping together. Most people think this is magic reason why underqualified, notorious bastard Jon managed to score the Head Archivist position. Jon is just trying to not fall apart at the seams as his boss keeps making demands.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: [placeholder title for jonelias abuse recovery mundane au] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2190315
Comments: 387
Kudos: 688
Collections: Rusty Kink





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this fic is going to be a lot of jon having a bad time, followed by jon having a worse time, followed by people we like thinking/telling jon it's all his fault thereby making it yet even worse, followed by, finally, some resolution. please exit out at any time if that's going to cause you duress. mind the tags, this is going to be tense.
> 
> written to fill this prompt from the rq kink meme: https://rusty-kink.dreamwidth.org/1380.html?thread=530532#cmt530532

“You alright there, Jon?”

Jon perks up from where he’d been staring into his glass, looking to the opposite side of the sofa where Elias sits. 

_When did he start calling me ‘Jon’?_

He’d been invited up for a conversation about his first week as Head Archivist earlier in the day, but conversation had shifted off of work topics fairly quickly after Elias had brought out a decanter. Jon shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “Yes, perfectly fine, just a bit sleepy. Spirits always do this to me, sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Elias smiles, and Jon feels an odd twinge of something warm in his chest. He ignores it. “Anyway, we’ve managed to get marvellously off track. How have you felt about this first week?”

Jon takes a sip before speaking. “To be quite honest, I feel like it really could have gone better. Don’t get me wrong, I am _immeasurably_ glad for the position and I will be putting in nothing but my best efforts, but it's a mess down there. Feels a bit like swimming upstream.”

“Well, that’s why I gave you the job.”

“Hmm?”

Elias smiles again, and Jon must be more drunk than he realized because he feels a bit giddy. “I knew it was going to be difficult, so I could only give it to someone I could trust. I’m no flatterer, so when I tell you ‘you’re very capable,’ know that that I mean it. You’re very capable.”

“Oh. Um, thank you.” Jon feels his cheeks heat a bit, though that could very well be entirely down to the alcohol, no matter how unused he is to direct praise like that. “That’s very kind of you to say.” He covers his expression by drinking from his glass again, and it comes away empty from his mouth.

“Not kind, _true_ ,” Elias emphasizes. He puts his own glass down on the coffee table before them and catches sight of Jon’s. He points to the decanter. “Would you like me too…?”

“No, no.” Jon puts his down on the table as well. “Feeling scrambled as it is, I don’t want to embarrass myself.” Looking at the pair of glasses on the table, it occurs to Jon that he drank three to Elias’s one.

“I’m quite sure you could never embarrass yourself in front of me, Jon, but you know your own limits better than I could.”

Again, the snippet of validation sends warmth into Jon’s bloodstream, and Jon can’t quite discern whether it’s uncomfortable or not. Before he can think any better, he says, “You have quite the way with words.”

Elias chuckles and leans in from his seat against the sofa arm, coming in closer. “None that you don’t deserve.”

Jon’s turn to chuckle. He mulls over the line he wants to say next, and, looking at his formal and buttoned up boss who keeps saying nice things to him, judges it safe. “Do you make a habit of getting your department heads drunk and flustered after hours?”

“Only the ones I like.” Elias moves in again. “And I do like you, Jon, you know that?”

Jon’s heart beat picks up, and quite suddenly he’s wishing he didn't say that. He's also wishing that he hadn’t declined another drink. Elias is really quite close now. “Thank you, Elias,” he says, quietly.

“I wouldn’t have hired you if I didn’t like you. Do you like me?”

Air catches in Jon’s throat. The warm feeling in his chest is rapidly cooling. Something’s off. He pushes past it, he must be making it up. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

Elias’s hand goes to the back of Jon’s neck, and Jon figures out what’s about to happen half-a-second before it happens. Elias brings his head forward, eclipsing Jon’s field of vision, and kisses him, long and slow. Jon doesn’t move a muscle. Elias pulls back. “You seem tense, are you at all uneasy?”

Jon doesn’t even think before saying, “No.” It’s the obvious answer, no need to think about how he actually feels.

“I must admit, I’ve been trying rather hard to let you know of my intentions, but I wasn’t sure you were picking it up.”

Jon breathes. “Well, I am now.”

“Good.” Elias comes in and kisses him again, this time with a hint of teeth. After a few seconds, Jon remembers that it’s polite to reciprocate when someone kisses you, and he does his best to try and press forward as well. Kissing is fine, he’s done plenty of kissing before, he even quite likes it on occasion. No reason he can’t like kissing Elias when Elias clearly likes kissing him. He’s busy convincing himself of this when he feels a hand start pulling up his shirt where it’s tucked into his trousers, and he grabs Elias’s wrist on reflex.

“I don’t want to do that,” he blurts. 

Elias looks down to where he’s restrained. “Oh, there’s no need to worry. At this hour, Rosie’ll be the only one left in the building, and she’s all the way down in reception. No chance of interruption, or of being overheard.”

 _In space no one can hear you scream,_ pops unbidden into Jon’s mind. Nevertheless, he lets go of Elias’s arm, though Elias doesn’t move it yet. “Still, I don’t…” How is he supposed to end that sentence? “I don’t have sex in general”? “I don’t want to sleep with you on company property seconds after you've declared your interest and all while I’m a bit drunk”?

However, Elias doesn’t give him time to decide how the sentence would end. “It’s perfectly alright. I like you, you like me, it’s fine. Isn’t it?”

“I _do_ like you, obviously. Only, I’m a bit… nervous.” Jon presses his knuckles into his eyes. This is happening, isn’t it? It’s just going to happen. That’s fine, Elias certainly means well, he can deal with it. “Can I have another drink, please? Just for the nerves.”

“Of course, of course, anything you like.” Elias backs off and refills Jon’s discarded glass, and as Jon takes it he notes with both thankfulness and apprehension that it’s got about twice as much in as it should. He drinks it as quickly as he can, carefully focusing only on avoiding coughing and _not_ on Elias unbuttoning his own vest and shirt. He puts the glass back down on the table, empty.

“Okay, um, ready when you are, I guess.”

“Lovely.” Elias starts kissing him again and manages to pull his shirt over his head without any interference this time. Jon closes his eyes and breathes. This is just an activity like any other, and it’ll be over in due time. Probably within the hour, if he’s lucky. He just has to stick it out until then, and everything will be fine.

 _Yes, yes, everything will be fine,_ he repeats over to himself as his belt buckle is undone.

* * *

Jon shuffles out of Elias’s office about ninety minutes later, feeling all sorts of mixed up, head spinning from drink and shock and intimacy. 

He didn't like that. 

He feels a bit nauseous, and he checks his watch as he steps into the lift. It’s not that late at all, he could stop at a takeaway and get a rogan josh on the way home, it'd probably help with the nausea. Some comfort food would be nice. Next, he checks his reflection in the polished metal of the wall. Shirt’s a bit wrinkled, hair’s a bit tousled, face’s a bit sweaty, nothing too major. He won’t need to dodge into a bathroom before getting on the tube, or before going out past Rosie. It's fine, it's salvageable. As the last floors count down, Jon tries to sort out his head.

Yes, it’s probably quite bad form for a boss to sleep with their fairly drunk employee all of a sudden like that. _Quite_ bad form, not _that_ bad. Jon feels… _very_ badly, but that's hardly Elias’s fault. He didn’t want to do any of that, but it was natural enough for Elias to assume he did. After all, he didn’t exactly just say _no,_ he _let it_ happen, he can’t shift blame for his _own_ poor decisions like that. He got himself drunk and pliant and didn’t speak up enough. That’s his own cross to bear. 

Still. His legs tremble underneath him as he walks out into the empty Institute foyer. Well, almost empty.

“Jonathan?” calls Rosie from her desk.

He pivots to face her. “Yes, Rosie?”

She’s smiling, but it falters as she looks longer. “Are you alright?”

Jon plasters on a cheery expression and desperately hopes it’s convincing. “Yep, just feel a bit dazed.”

“Ah.” Rosie nods, and slowly a knowing grin spreads across her face. “ _Ah,_ ” she repeats, a wink somehow in her voice. “Had a good time, did you?”

Jon swallows. If there’s a time to explain what just happened, it’s now. It is _not_ good for an employer to sleep with their intoxicated employee, _obviously_. If this same thing happened to, say, Sasha, or to anyone else, Jon would be breaking down HR’s door faster than you could say “lawsuit.”

But this is different. Jon agreed to it. He can deal with any personal fallout by himself.

He smiles. “I did, yes. See you tomorrow.”

* * *

Jon comes in the following Monday, button down shirt done up right the way to his neck, skirt brushing the tops of his tights-wearing feet, and mind set on not dwelling. This can be a normal work day. Friday was surely a one-time event, Elias is surely as mortified about the whole ordeal as he is, and he surely has nothing to worry about. He makes his way down to his basement office without even once considering an alternative.

There’s a sticky note on the front of his computer screen.

“ _Loved spending time with you last week. Lunch together in my office today, 12:30. -E.B._ ”

He swipes it off the instant he’s read it, and stares at it, bringing it close to his face to inspect. Sasha walks by the open door and looks through.

“That was there when I got here,” she says, and Jon nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus, Sasha, don't, don't _scare_ me like that!"

"Oh, sorry, sorry!"

"No, no, it's alright, just feeling a bit skittish at the moment." He drops his work bag to the floor beside him and gravitates back to normalcy. "Anyway, um, good morning." Something in what she said clicks, and his pulse picks right back up. "Sorry, you were in my office?”

“I had a file to drop off.” She points to the manila folder before him.

Jon tries very hard to regulate his breathing. “Oh, right, of course. Thank you.”

She hovers.

“Yes?”

“I won’t tell anyone, but I think Martin saw the note, too, when he left you your tea. And I expect he’ll have told Tim. And Tim…”

Shit. _Cover up,_ he thinks urgently. “Well, that’s fine. Just a note about a meeting, it’s no great breach of privacy.”

Sasha nods, her expression stiff. “Right.”

Jon nods, his hands clammy. "Right."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pattern starts to form, and Tim makes himself known.

It’s 12:45, and Jon is pressed up against the door to Institute Head’s office with Elias’s tongue reaching to the back of his throat. He’s perfectly sober this time but God does he wish he weren’t.

He’d spent the entire morning unable to do a single continuous minute of work, the adrenaline rushing through his veins making him watch the clock with hawk like intensity and nothing else. He’d considered pretending he forgot about the meeting, but that might just mean Elias would call or come down himself, and Jon couldn’t be having that. Then he’d tried to keep the interaction professional, sitting at a safe distance on the opposite side of the desk and speaking measuredly.

“What happened last week, I don’t think I--I didn’t particularly like it,” he’d said.

Elias had lowered his eyebrows into an expression of sympathy. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that. My aim is just to make you happy.”

_Relief._

“I’ll try and make it better for you this time.”

_Fuck._ Jon’s heart had sunk as Elias had started to get up.

So now he finds himself trying to make his body relax and stop flinching so violently as Elias slowly pulls up the hem of his skirt and thumbs over the waistband of his tights, experimentally hooking a finger in and pulling.

“God, these are like a chastity belt, so damn _tight._ I'm not sure I could get them off.” Elias breathes, momentarily taking his lips off of Jon’s. 

Jon bites back that that was somewhat the point. “Well, they are called ‘tights.’” 

Elias laughs a bit, and Jon feels a spot of gladness despite himself. “That they are, Jon. No matter, I can work over them.” Quickly, he goes back to kissing and squeezes his hand between Jon’s legs.

Jon breathes a fluttering gasp. _No no no no no_.

Elias makes some kind of deep, confident sound low in his throat. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“I, uh, yes, but, Elias, we’re--it’s the middle of the day!” He laughs, a touch hysterically, on reflex.

Elias smiles. “The door locks perfectly securely, and you can be quiet, can’t you? Though, I do appreciate the implication that you’d find it difficult.” He squeezes again, and Jon tries very very hard to neutralize his reaction. “Yes, just like that.”

Elias comes in and starts kissing his neck as the hand works between his legs, and Jon feels his mind starting to drift away to other places. _No._ He needs to keep his wits about him. He’ll try one more time, and if that doesn’t work, then he’ll just give in. “El--Eli--Elias,” he stammers weakly around labored breaths. “Elias, I don’t have a change of clothes with me.”

“What?” For a second, the hands come off him, and Jon doesn’t let show on his face how relieving that is.

“If you’re going to do, uh, _that_ , over my clothes, it’ll be messy, and I have to be here for at least another four hours.” Jon lets out a breath as Elias steps back. _Thank Christ._

“You do appear to have a point there this time.” He taps his chin for a moment and his face lights up. “Do you know my home address?”

“N--”

“No, of course you don’t, why would you? Nevermind, I know yours. I can pick you up at around, say, 6:30?”

Jon’s confused. “I don’t understand.”

“If I’m to give you something you like, it’ll be better done at my house. You want that, right? To let me make you feel good?”

Jon wants to say no. Jon _really_ wants to say no. He wants to say no and run from the office and never have to do anything like this again. But Elias’s eyes are _so earnest_. What reason could he _give_ , could he _have_ , for saying “no” other than his own ridiculous neuroses? It’s fine. He can let this happen. At least this ought to give him another few hours leeway.

He runs his tongue over his dry lips. “Yes. 6:30 it is.”

“Good.”

Jon looks at the clock on the wall behind Elias. No where near the end of lunch, but can he come up with an excuse--?

“In the meantime,” Elias says, putting his hands on Jon’s shoulders and pushing him to his knees, “We may as well use the time we’ve got left.”

* * *

" _Don't think about it, don't think about it,_ " Jon whispers to himself as he makes his way back down to the Archives. On the bright side, his clothes don’t look any different to before he saw Elias, it’s just his hair that’s messy this time from the hands that had gripped it. But God, what he wouldn’t give for a toothbrush. Actually, that’s a thought.

Jon loiters in the doorway to the assistants’ office. Tim, luckily, is the only one yet back from lunch, and on the floor beside his desk-- _Yes_ \--is his gym bag. Jon coughs.

Tim looks up from his computer, lays eyes on his Jon, and whistles lowly. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost, boss.”

Jon tries to smile but he’s afraid it comes out more as a cringe. _Calm demeanor time_. “Thanks for that, Tim, very amusing. Can I, uh, ask you for a favor?”

“Hit me.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a toothbrush in your bag, would you? And if so, may I borrow it?”

“Oh, I should, I think.” Tim pulls the bag up onto his knee and begins to rifle through it. “Ah! Here it is. Any particular reason you need it?”

Jon makes his mouth a firm line. “Because I want to brush my teeth.”

“Ah.” He looks Jon up and down, and his face quirks up into something playful. “Didn’t Martin tell me you had a meeting with Elias for lunch?”

Jon can feel his skin break out into goosebumps. “I don’t know, he might have done.”

Tim bursts into a short peal of laughter. “That’d be bold even for me, Jon, _wow!_ I’m, I’m _impressed!_ I feel like I should congratulate you, buy you a drink or something.”

Jon bristles. “I resent what you’re implying, Tim.”

“What, like I’m gonna let you deflect your great achievement of giving some office-hours Institute head?”

“ _Tim_ ,” Jon all-but-shouts. “I don’t like this topic. May I please just use your toothbrush?”

“Alright, fine, yeah, no need to get worked up about it.” Tim sighs, passes it over, and gestures to Jon's head. “Do you want a comb, too?”

Reluctantly, Jon nods, and Tim passes it over as well.

“Thank you.” The words are clipped, but Jon nonetheless means them. “Do you intend to tell other people about this?”

“Might do, yeah.”

Jon wants to cry a bit. “Okay.”

* * *

That evening, Jon doesn’t even try to resist. He’s just going give in eventually, might as well do it the easy way.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The assistants have a chat and jump to a conclusion.

Martin hurries into the breakroom and quickly passes Tim and Sasha the coffees they’d asked for.

“Cheers, mate,” says Tim at the same time as Sasha says, “I’ll pay you back by the end of the week.”

“Sorry for the wait!” Martin bustles into his seat, largely ignoring what was just said to him. “I got held up chatting to Rosie on the way in, and before I knew it ten minutes had passed. Anyway, what are we talking about?”

“Just some good old office goss,” Tim says, sipping his drink.

Martin perks up. “Oh? No one ever tells me anything, fill me in.”

Sasha groans. “ _I_ was just saying that I don’t think we should speculate over people’s personal lives when they’re not around. You wouldn’t like it done to you!” She directs the last sentence towards Tim.

“Well _I’m_ not sleeping with the Institute Head on company time. If I were, I’d frankly be quite disappointed if people weren’t talking about it.” Tim sits back in his chair. “And besides, I thought the same thing at first since he seemed so defensive, but it’s not like they’re taking efforts to be terribly discreet about it. If it’s practically common knowledge, then I think it’s conversational fair game.”

“Sorry, what?” Martin asks, looking back and forth between the two. “Who--who’s sleeping with Elias? Or, allegedly sleeping with Elias?”

Tim laughs. “You don’t know?”

“I _told you_ no one tells me anything! I’ve got no baseline here!”

“ _Tim,_ ” Sasha implores, “If he doesn’t know, don’t tell him.”

“No, no, if everyone else knows then I think I want to, too. It’s awful being left out.”

“Listen to the man, Sash! We’re a research Institute, who are we to withhold information from an interested coworker?”

Sasha sighs. “Alright, alright. I suppose I’m no better, I’ve already heard all of it.”

Tim claps. “There we go!” He turns in his chair. “Right Martin, the hot gossip is that our boss is sleeping with our boss, and has been for at least a good few weeks.”

Martin sputters and nearly inhales the coffee he’s sipping. “Excuse me? You mean _Jon?_ Jon and _Elias?_ ”

“The very same.”

“Well, pardon me if I’d like some evidence to back _that_ up, ‘cause that’s…”

“Out of character?” supplies Sasha.

Martin nods. “Yeah, a bit.”

“Okay.” Tim lays his hands flat on the table, professional. “So, Jon’s been having lunch, well--” he does air quotes with his fingers-- “‘having lunch,’ in Elias’s office at _least_ every other day since starting as Head Archivist, right?”

“Well, I know _that_ , but it’s a bit of a logic jump to go from having lunch to having sex, Tim.”

“Right, yes, but that’s not all. Oh! I’m pretty sure he goes up there after 5 p.m. rolls around on some days, too, but I’m less sure about that, and that’s not the big thing, no. The big thing is, Hannah told me--you know Hannah, right? Works in the library?”

“Yes, I also used to work in the library.”

“Right, of course. Well, Hannah told me she’s caught them kissing in the lift before. Like, proper Jon’s-arms-wrapped-around-Elias-and-Elias-reaching-up-under-Jon’s-shirt level snogging.”

“Oh _wow._ ”

“Yeah.” Tim grins. “And a few Mondays ago, I forget how many, but--and I didn’t tell anyone about this ‘cause he didn’t want to talk about it--”

“You told me,” Sasha interjects.

“Well, yeah, I told _you_ , but you hardly count. It’s like telling your mum gossip from school: you know it’s not going anywhere further.”

“I… wish I could argue with you.”

“Anyway, for those here who haven’t heard it yet, a few Mondays ago, Jon came down from one of his private ‘meetings’ with Elias looking a little out of it and he borrowed a toothbrush and comb from me. I teased him about it a bit, as I do, and he got, like, instantly defensive about it, but, crucially, defensive without actually saying he _hadn’t_ just been going down on our collective boss upstairs.”

Martin’s cheeks darken a tad. “This is… a lot.”

“It sure is.” Sasha taps her fingers on the table top. “I do think it’s pretty clear that they at least have _something_ going on, but I was genuinely surprised. I mean, I’m sure you’ve both seen the black ring on his right hand.”

“That could just be decorative, and, besides, plenty of ace people have sex.”

“I know that, _Tim_ , I’m just saying. We’ve worked with him for what, four years? And I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember a single instance of him ever being in or even pursuing a relationship.”

“I suppose, but that’s neither here nor there. Could've just been saving his energy.” Tim shrugs. “In conclusion, Martin, Jon is screwing Elias on the regular and, quite honestly, from the bottom of my heart, good for him. If there were ever someone high strung enough to need it, y'know.”

Martin heaves a great sigh. “Woof. I guess that explains some stuff.”

Sasha furrows her brows. “Whatcha mean?”

“Like, for example, when I was talking with Rosie just now she was telling me about how Elias seems to have gotten close to Jon rather quickly, and how it’s remarkable he got made a department head with four years experience when she doesn’t know of anyone ever getting that kind of promotion with less than eight. It just, it fills in some gaps.” Martin pauses, staring into the middle distance, and sucks in a short panicked breath. “I think I just implied something that I didn’t mean to. Sorry.”

A hush falls across the table as they each contend with the new information. Slowly, Sasha’s face begins to fall. “Oh,” she says, under her breath.

Tim looks at her. “Sash, did Elias ever, with you, I mean, make any kind of advance, or seem--?”

“No, he didn’t.” Sasha begins packing her lunch back up into its box. “And I never offered, so.”

Martin wilts. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said.”

“No, no, it’s alright.” She speaks carefully, clearly restraining some kind of emotion. “It’s good that I know. I’d just been putting it down to misogyny, and I suppose this is better, in a way. It’s not that I couldn’t get the job when any man applied as well, it’s that I couldn’t get the job when someone else put ‘fellatio’ on their CV.”

Tim grits his teeth and laughs low in his chest. “I am, uh, _no longer_ impressed. God, I could wring Jon’s neck, _you_ deserved that position."

“It’s not--” she bites her tongue. “It’s not Jon’s fault, or he’s not to blame, or, whatever. Not Jon’s fault that Elias responds better to someone taking their clothes off, and that I didn’t think to do it, too.”

Martin’s eyes are shiny, but then again, so are Sasha’s. “Sasha, I am so, _so_ sorry.”

“I said it’s _alright_ , Martin!” He flinches, and she stops and modifies her tone. “It’s alright, Martin, I’m not going to shoot the messenger. I’m sorry for raising my voice, I’m just upset. Actually, no, I’m not sorry--well, yes I’m sorry for raising my voice at _you_ \--but _not_ for being upset and angry about this. I am perfectly allowed to be frustrated.”

“ _Yes_ you are!” chimes in Tim.

“I work in this field for, for _ten years_. I stick out Artefact Storage for _three months_ , most don’t make it past one. I do good research, no, I do _excellent_ research for _years_. I apply for the job I want, that I _know_ Gertrude picked me out for, and Jon just waltzes in with barely any relevant experience, sits himself on Elias’s fucking lap, and gets the position that I _know_ I was better qualified for.” She sits and seethes for a second, finally running her hands over her face and groaning. “ _Ugh_. Still, I don’t want either of you confronting him about this. That won’t do any good, and it _was_ Elias’s decision in the end. I just need to sit and be angry for a minute.”

There’s a sound by the door, and three sets of eyes whip up to look in perfect synchronicity.

“I, um,” Jon stammers, “I thought I heard my name.”

“Have a nice lunch?” says Sasha while Martin asks, “How long have you been standing there?”

He flicks his eyes back and forth between them. “I didn’t hear anything! Just, if that’s what you’re worried about, then I didn’t. Maybe the last sentence, if that. Sorry, like I said, I thought I heard one of you call me, I’ll just be on my way.” He turns to go, but not before Martin can add something.

“I went out to Costa earlier and brought us all back a drink. I know you don’t like coffee, but I didn’t just want to get you tea, so there’s a cup of hot, well, probably room temperature by now, chocolate waiting on your desk.” He gives a cringe of a smile.

“Right, thank you, Martin.” Jon nods, and heads down the hallway.

 _Fuck,_ Jon thinks. _Fuck. She’s right. She’s right, Elias said it himself. He wouldn’t have hired me if he didn’t want to--if he didn’t “like” me._

He gets to his office and sees the deep red coffee cup sitting on top of some papers in front of his chair. He sits down, counts to ten as he breathes, and takes a few sips. Very nice, though not enough to soothe his wildly firing nerves. Without making a sound, Jon slips out a smallish bottle of vodka from his bag hanging on the back of the chair and pours some into the cup, filling it back up to the brim. After a second of debate, he takes a few sips straight from the bottle as well before stowing it away again. Elias has used alcohol to placate him on several occasions, he might as well try the same technique on himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some events over some time, some reassurance, some confrontation, and a snap.

It’s getting harder and harder for Jon to track down an assistant when he needs one. Much of the time, he’s the only one to be found in the Archives, his footsteps on the tile floors echoing in long corridors. If he does happen to be looking for someone at the same time as Tim or Sasha are in, they’ll usually make some excuse about just being on their way out and push past him towards the door. Sasha’s face usually shows tightly restrained anger. Tim’s doesn't show restraint. That’s fair, Jon supposes.

He can still usually get Martin to do things for him, though, something for which Jon finds himself oddly grateful. He barely knows Martin and certainly hasn’t yet found it in him to like the man, but having at least one person still regularly talking to and smiling at him feels… good. But he doesn’t understand why Martin’s doing this, and he tells him as such.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asks one day as Martin sets a tea mug on his desk.

Martin frowns. “What do you mean?”

“The others aren’t. Don’t get me wrong, I understand _why_ , and that’s, that’s why I don’t understand you. You have every right to hate me if you wanted to.”

“ _Hate_ you?” Martin looks almost indignant but quickly schools his features. “I’m being nice to you _because_ they aren’t. Something’s stressing you out, I can tell, you haven’t looked entirely well for weeks now, and I think you shouldn’t have _no_ one down here being nice to you.”

Jon doesn’t really know what to say to that. “There’s nothing stressing me out.”

“Sure, maybe there isn’t.” Martin shrugs. “I’d make you tea anyway. Even if the circles under your eyes aren’t there for any particular reason, you still should have someone willing to be in the room with you. So that can be me for now.” 

_Thank you,_ Jon wants to say.

Martin smiles at the ground, a tad sheepish. “Well, that can be me _and_ Elias.”

* * *

“Elias, I don’t want to tonight. Please, can I just… I’ve never had a relationship this… _intense_ , before. I need a break.”

Elias looks at him across the dinner table. “Why of course. I’d never make you do something you don’t want to, who do you think I am?”

Jon recognizes the undercurrent tone. Stupid, why would he think this protest would get anywhere different than past ones? “Sorry for suggesting otherwise.”

“It’s alright. I’m glad you asked instead of making yourself, though do let me know if you change your mind.” He glances at Jon’s glass. “More wine?”

As he expected. “Yes, please.”

* * *

As a rule, Jon doesn’t like getting drunk at work. He wants to maintain at least an air of professionalism, keep a tiny bit of productivity going. He’d rather spit directly in Sasha’s face than completely waste the job he’d stolen from her. It’s hard not to, sometimes, though. He usually finds himself wanting to after seeing Elias, but if he’s spent his lunch break… not eating lunch… then he’ll just end up too nauseous to focus. He tends to settle for spiking his own drinks a little and getting just loose enough that he stops wanting to hit his head into a wall.

* * *

Jon can’t decide if it’s worse in the Institute Head’s office or in Elias’s house. The office usually has a time limit of either a lunch hour or of needing to get out before it’s massively late, but the house is more private. In the office, he jumps at every sound outside the door and is constantly needled by the thought of people knowing why he’s in there. In the house, he can’t leave before he’s fully satisfied Elias. And that can take _many_ hours. He supposes neither is better, they just make his skin crawl in different ways.

“My assistants know about us,” he says, pulling a blanket up over his torso.

Elias entwines his leg with Jon’s. “That stands to reason. We aren’t exactly the Institute’s best kept secret.”

“Didn’t you want us to be private?”

“I mean, I probably won’t be bringing you out anywhere, and letting the other staff on the top floor hear your lovely moans isn’t high on my to-do list, but I don’t see why we would categorically hide it.”

“I suppose I’m just a private person, I don’t like people knowing that kind of stuff about me. And I guess I thought people might think this kind of relationship is…” Unethical. Wrong. “…inappropriate. Power imbalance and everything.”

“Maybe in some cases, but you’re an adult, Jon. You can make your own decisions. And you want to keep doing this, yes?”

Jon nods firmly. Obfuscating just makes the conversation longer.

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

“I don’t think they approve, they’ve been being, sort of, standoffish.”

Elias frowns. “And you’re still willing to work with them?”

“Of course.”

“Well, like I just said, you can make your own decisions. But anyone who doesn’t approve of what you want isn’t worth your time. If I were you, I’d stop paying them any mind, but that’s just me.”

Jon considers it.

* * *

“You’ve _got_ to stop wearing such tricky clothes,” Elias pants in Jon’s ear, hands fumbling around his hips as he lays back over Elias’s desk. “It’s either buckles or layers or too tight all the time. I mean, I like a challenge, but it’s all delays in the end.”

Jon nods, expressionless. “Okay.”

“I want to be able to just reach up and grab you. I like the skirts, make them shorter. I want to see your legs around the building.”

Jon knows it’s moot, but, “It’s winter.”

“Then wear leggings on the commute and take them off when you get in. Get a long coat. Simple.”

Jon swallows. “Okay.”

* * *

He’s painfully aware of the three heads watching him as he walks past the assistants’ office. It’s not a miniskirt or anything, just something simple and black and falling just above the knee, but it’s a far cry from the lehengas he otherwise wears. He sorely misses the feeling of the fabric around his ankles and desperately wants to dash back into his office, but it doesn’t matter. His feelings don’t matter. He can take the humiliation. Never mind the hot pressure building up behind his eyes.

* * *

Elias is kissing him. This isn’t remarkable in and of itself, Jon finds himself being kissed by Elias fairly often and has long since stopped feeling shocked when it happens. But Elias is kissing him by the door to the lift on the top floor. The doors are going to open any second now, Jon is hearing every _ding_ of it rising another level, but Elias shows no sign of unpinning him from the wall.

“We’ll,” Jon says, coming up for air, “We’ll be seen.”

“So what?” Elias kisses him again and reaches his hand under Jon’s skirt and up his thigh. Jon feels his blood go cold.

“I--I just--I don’t want--privacy’s important-- _no_ \--” It’s hard to speak clearly when you keep having your way blocked by someone else’s lips.

The doors open. Jon gives up. He stands there as people file out, and eventually, Elias lets him go. He stares at the ground as he runs in, trying to tell himself he doesn’t hear the person wolf whistling at him. God, he hates being watched like that.

The ride down to the basement is uninterrupted by stops and it does the thing he hates by giving him time to think without distraction or sedative. Every time he’s alone with his thoughts like this he just ends up frustrated and wanting to cry. He _said_ he preferred privacy, he _told_ Elias he didn’t want to, he _said_ _no!_ He doesn’t often directly say no to things, and it… it hurts to have them bulldozed. Yes, bulldozed, that’s the right word. Every single _fucking_ time he’s said he doesn’t want to do something, it’s almost like Elias will deliberately take extra care just to bulldoze him and make sure he's forced to do that one specific thing. Is Jon allowed to hate this? Jon wants to hate this. He hates it even if he’s chosen all of it. It's getting so hard to breathe.

The lift drops him in the Archives and he shuffles out into the hallway. He finds himself drifting towards the assistants’ office. He looks in, and there’s only one person.

Tim looks at him from where he’d been standing by a filing cabinet. “What do _you_ want?”

“Uh.” Jon comes to the startling realization that he has no idea why he came in here, but words start coming out anyway. “You know me better than the others.”

Tim squints. “That checks out, yeah.”

Deep breath. “If I, if I asked you for help, for you to help me, would you?”

Tim closes the drawer of the filing cabinet and shifts his weight between his feet a few times. “Probably not at the moment, honestly. I’m quite angry with you, you see,” he says, almost chipper.

Should have expected as much. “Okay.” Jon turns to leave.

“No, wait, don’t go yet.”

Jon stops and looks back.

Tim sighs and speaks slowly. “Sasha didn’t want me to do this, because she’s a better person than me and doesn’t think it’d be right to confront you over what she _generously_ calls a ‘fair play,’ but she’s not here right now, so I’ve got some things to say.”

“Tim--”

“No, I’m talking now. Do you know how much you fucked her over? The last Head Archivist had the job for, what, half-a-century? I don’t know as much about other departments, but I don’t see another position like this opening up anytime soon. Sasha has worked here longer than you, she’s worked harder than you, and she’s worked better than you. She deserves _way_ more than an assistant’s salary, so either she’s going to have to consign herself to being undervalued here for the rest of her career, or she’s going to have to uproot her whole life and find another job somewhere else because _you_ couldn’t act like a normal person and not do the job interview on your back! And, for Christ’s sake, you can’t even be normal about it now, look at you, you didn’t used to dress like that. And _don't_ tell me that's all not just to be all the more captivating for him upstairs so he doesn't get bored and reconsider.”

Jon digs his nails into his wrist. Tim looks like he has more to say, but he can't let himself be around to hear it. All the frustration and anger and hate that's been building up has sharpened into a knife edge, and it’s either going to strike outwards or inwards. He doesn't want to blow up at Tim. “You could have left it at ‘you wouldn’t help me,’” he says, and turns back down the hallway.

He makes a quick stop at his office to finish off the bottle he brought in today before going back to the lift and slamming the call button. In the blink of an eye, he’s striding through the door to Elias’s office, straddling his lap, and pulling him forward by the lapels to kiss.

After a few seconds, they break apart. Elias’s lips quirk up into half a smile. “I should make you upset more often if this is what happens. I leave you alone for ten minutes and you come back desperate and tasting of alcohol, I swear.”

That hurts. “I want to screw you.”

“I can see that. Don’t we both have work to be doing?” Elias teases.

“I don’t want to go back downstairs, I want you to wreck me.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely.” Elias lifts him up by his thighs, sits him on the desk, and starts sucking a mark into his neck. The feeling turns his stomach. He’s going to hate this.

Perfect.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin realizes something isn't right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys I swear this is a no entites au I swear the institute here just does something really similar that still requires an archive and for people to come in and give statements but there's nothing paranormal here I swear bro. ALSO I didn't think it warranted the "self-harm" tag but there's some subconscious self injury in the beginning of this chapter. EDIT: actually nvm I did add the tag, so heed that.

“Please state your name and the subject of your experience.”

“Into that? You’re joking.” Melanie pauses and looks at the man across from her. “Hey, are you okay?”

“What?” Jon looks up from where he’d been staring vaguely at the tape recorder.

Melanie points at his hands. “You’re scratching your arms.”

“I’m--? Oh, yeah.” He unfolds his arms and holds his hands away from himself on the desk. “I didn’t notice. Sorry, go on.”

She points again. “You’ve drawn blood.”

He glances down. “Hmm. I’ll deal with it later.”

“No, you won’t,” she says slowly, a bit confused. “I’m not giving a statement while you sit there and bleed.”

He doesn’t move.

“Can you show me your arm, please?” She makes a “gimme” motion with her right hand.

Silently, he extends the bleeding arm.

“See, you’ve picked a scab open. There are quite a few here, actually.” She turns his arm over, and he lets her. “Are these all your own scratches?”

“Probably.”

“That’s a weird answer.”

“Okay.”

Melanie blinks at him. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” Jon lies.

“It’s just, you seem a bit… I dunno. Off.”

“I usually am.”

She presses her lips together. “The scratch is sort of long, is there a first aid kit about anywhere?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Do you have any plasters?”

“No.”

“Right.” Melanie realizes she’s still holding his wrist and lets go.

He rubs his eyes. “Sorry, I’m not feeling well. Let’s start over: name and subject, please.”

“Actually--” Melanie pushes out her chair-- “I think I’m gonna go.”

His face falls. “I’m sorry--”

“No, it’s alright, I’ve just reconsidered. Wasn’t important anyway.”

The door closes behind her, and Jon puts his head in his hands on the desk. “Can’t do _anything_ right,” he mumbles aloud to the empty room. His shoulders start to shake.

* * *

“Hey, do you work here?”

Martin looks up from the sandwich he’d been making on the breakroom counter and sees an unfamiliar woman standing in the doorway. “Uh, yeah. I’m Martin, I’m an archival assistant. What do you need?”

“I think your Archivist needs to go home.”

“Pardon?”

“My name’s Melanie, and, um, I just tried to give a statement and he’s like, way out of it. Made himself bleed and didn’t even notice. I don’t think he's having a good day.”

“Oh that’s very not good.”

“Yeah. I know, not my business and everything and I’m just on my way out, but I figured I should tell someone before I left.”

“Thank you, yes, I’ll go check on him.”

“Good. Right then, I’ll be off.”

“Sure, sure.” Martin puts away his sandwich ingredients as Melanie’s footsteps head off in the direction of the staircase. If Jon’s having a bad time, he can eat later. Some thirty seconds pass and he’s in the hallway outside the Head Archivist’s office, trying not to catastrophize about what’s wrong. As he puts his hand on the door and it starts to swing open, Martin hears some kind of sound from inside, but he can’t quite place it.

“Hey Jon, just checking in on--Christ, are you alright?”

Jon bolts upright in his chair, wiping tears away from his bloodshot eyes with the back of his hand. “Go away, Martin.”

“What’s wrong? Can I get you anything?” 

Martin inches further into the room and Jon physically recoils in his seat. “I want you to go away.”

“Are you sure? You seem--”

“ _Please._ ”

He puts his hands out like in surrender. “Okay, I’ll go.” He backs out of the room again and closes the door behind him. He stays hovering in front of it for a moment, considering the best course of action. “I’m just down the hall if you need anything. Or if you just want anything, too,” he calls through the wood. “I’m sure I can make up some excuse if you want to leave early.”

He doesn’t get a response.

* * *

“There you are,” says Martin as he finally spots where he’d left his umbrella earlier. His Friday night plans had not included coming back into work at half eight to retrieve his own forgotten belongings, but on the other hand his Friday night plans had not included anything, so no skin off his nose really. He picks it up and is going to head out when he hears the lift doors open and the sound of people stepping out, one of them in the midst of a giggling fit.

“Jon, _Jon_ , please try and get a hold of yourself,” says a deep BBC accent that Martin instantly recognizes. 

He dodges out into the hallway and his eyes widen. “Ah, hello Elias. And hello… Jon?”

Elias is standing upright with Jon’s left arm slung around his shoulders and looking distinctly annoyed as Jon clings for support. Jon appears to be trying to focus his eyes on Martin but is already having enough trouble keeping his head up without blinking into unconsciousness as it is, so the extra strain is likely too much.

“Martin, there you are, good,” says Elias, shuffling the pair of them forward a bit and trying to unattach Jon. “Can you take this? He’s had quite a bit to drink and I was going to put him down to sleep in the cot down here, but I’m rather busy so I’d appreciate it if you took over.”

Martin watches Jon put a hand on the wall beside him as he sways unsteadily on his feet. _Busy at this time on a Friday?_ “Yeah, of course.”

“Thank you.” Elias instantly turns back around and recedes into the lift, disappearing.

Martin gives Jon a once-over. “Can you walk alright?”

Jon takes his arm off the wall. “Mm hmm,” he hums, nodding, and proceeds to take two steps before tilting over sideways.

Martin manages to catch him before he’s past the point of no return. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Jon struggles to get himself vaguely upright again and points generally at his own face. “‘M drunk.”

“Yes you are.” There’s something distinctly off about this whole situation, but Martin can ignore it until a later time. “Now let’s get you laying down.”

“Okay.” They stumble down the hallway, Jon clinging around Martin's shoulders, and after a minute he pipes up, his words a bit soupy sounding, “I’m sorry for snapping at you the other day. Dunno why I was upset.”

“That’s alright, Jon. You don’t need to explain.”

“You’re being nice to me again.”

Every time he brings that up, Martin wonders more and more why he says it like it’s exceptional. “Of course I am. And hey, we’ve reached our destination.” Martin gently kicks open the door to the document storage room, lets go of Jon, and flicks on the overhead light with the switch by the door.

Jon sits down heavily on the thin mattress. “Sitting’s good.” 

“Sure is.” Martin squints. In the light, he can now see several deep red bruise-like marks standing out on Jon's neck and jaw that he doesn’t recall being there during the day. “Elias do those?” he asks, pointing, just for something to say.

Jon’s hand raises to his own neck. “Oh, have I got--?”

“Hickeys? Yes.” The word makes Martin feel like a seventeen-year-old just saying it.

“Yeah, he likes those, leaving something to show.” His speech sounds untethered, like he’s not thinking about it and his internal monologue has just phased into the external world. He puts his hands on his waist and pulls at a tag sticking out near his skirt's front. “I think he put this back on me backwards on purpose.”

That--wait. This is getting into incredibly personal territory but Martin needs to pull on this thread and there’s no way Jon’s going to be this open about it later. “You slept together tonight?”

“I think so.” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “Yeah. It’s a bit blurry, but yeah.”

Martin’s got a very bad feeling he already knows the answer to his next question. “Were you sober?”

Jon actually laughs. “No, nooo, very much no.”

Oh fuck. “Jon, that’s really bad.”

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s what I usually do recently.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I don’t like sex, don’t usually want to, y’know, so getting a bit drunk, or, well, a lot drunk sometimes, helps me relax for it.”

Martin stares, his mouth hanging open.

Jon stares back and his eyebrows slowly knit together. “I think I’ve said a few wrong things.”

“Are you alright?” Martin asks, his tone soft. It’s less a question and more a plea. _Please don’t be as hurt as I think you are._

Jon doesn’t answer for a second, his face completely still, and Martin thinks he might be about to cry again. Eventually he gives a stiff nod and then immediately plasters on a smile. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Look, I’m, I’m not that drunk. Everything’s normal, none of that came across right, there’s nothing wrong.”

Several gears click into place and Martin runs a hand through his hair. “Jesus, I am the stupidest person in the world, how did I not see this?”

“‘Cause there’s nothing to see. I, I, I misspoke, it’s not like that.”

“I don’t believe you.” Martin takes his phone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?” Panic is slowly crowding hazy confusion out of Jon’s demeanor.

Martin huffs in overwhelmed disbelief. “I’m going to dial 999.”

Jon’s hand shoots out and grabs Martin’s wrist. “No.”

“Yes, Jon! You’ve just been a victim of a violent crime, so I’m reporting it to try and not have it happen again.”

“No no no no no.” He gets to his feet, his breathing getting heavier and faster as Martin lights up the phone screen. “Please, please Martin, please don’t, please.”

Martin looks up. Jon’s on the brink of tears.

“ _Please_.”

The phone is in his hand. The keypad is pulled up. Wordlessly, and without taking his eyes off of Jon’s, he slips it back in his pocket.

Jon’s head slumps forward and he breathes a deep sigh of relief, letting go of Martin’s wrist. “Thank you.”

“It’s alright, but what should I do instead?”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“I have to tell people, Jon! I can’t just pretend I don’t know, or like it’s not happening.”

Jon shrugs. “That’s sort of what I’ve been doing.”

Oh Christ. “Just let me tell Tim and Sasha. They could help you, Jon, I promise you they’d want to help.”

“I’m not _ready,_ I can’t, I don’t want--” Tears are starting to spill over onto his cheeks, and Martin hates so much that this conversation is making him feel worse. “How can I get you to not tell anyone? What do you want?”

“I just want to make this easier for you, and that’ll only happen if you _let people help._ ”

“ _No._ ” He sounds so desperate, and he takes Martin’s hands in his. “I’ll, I can, do you want, um--” Instead of finishing the sentence, he leans forward and kisses Martin square on the lips.

Martin manages not to jump, but he quickly puts his hands on Jon’s chest and pushes him off. “No, Jon,” he says, low and slow, “That is the opposite of what I want. Please don’t do that.”

Jon looks like he wants to push it again, but the expression drops after a second and slides right into shame. “I know, I’m sorry, I just, I don’t know what to do.” He looks at his shoes and a sob manages to escape his throat despite how clearly he’s trying to hold it back.

_Neither do I,_ Martin thinks. But he doesn’t say that out loud. That would be the last thing Jon needs. “I’ll wait to do anything until you’re ready.”

Jon wraps his arms around Martin’s shoulders and puts his face in the crook of his neck.

“I said not to--”

“That’s not what I’m doing. Thank you.”

Martin hugs him back and waits for Jon to decide when it’s over, which is a full twenty seconds later.

"Can we stop talking about this for now?"

Martin pats him on the shoulders. “Sure, sure. Anything else can wait. Do you want to go to your place or mine?”

“What? I thought I was going to sleep here.”

“Yeah, you were, but I think you need a hot meal and real bed. I take it you’re feeling a bit more alert now?”

Jon takes internal stock. “I am, yes.” A pause. “It’ll be easier to sleep in my own bed.”

“So we’re going to yours. You can tell me the route once we get outside.”

Feeling less like all the air is being crushed out of his lungs than he has in months, Jon follows Martin out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events concerning a breakdown in the breakroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (apologies for the slightly longer wait, in a turn up for the books I actually had some socializing to do this week)

Jon closes his eyes.

This is fine. He didn’t say no, it’s fine.

Intimacy is good, it’s normal, it’s something people like. He used to worry that he was getting legitimately touch starved since his last breakup, so Elias kissing up his leg is ultimately something that should help him, not make him want to take a steel scouring pad to his own skin. Any weird reactions he has are on him.

Jon opens his eyes.

“Violent crime” had been the phrase Martin used.

Martin had been so nice to him. Helping him stumble home, making him a meal, leaving painkillers and water on his bedside table. That had felt good.

“Does this feel good?” asks Elias.

Jon’s breath hitches. _No._ “Yes.”

He feels like this is bad but he can’t trust himself. Martin said this is bad and he can trust Martin. If it’s been bad every time he’s felt like it was then… no. No no no. Don’t think about it.

Jon closes his eyes.

Maybe this is bad but maybe it’s not wrong. Maybe Elias crossed a line but maybe he was right to. Maybe Jon throws up afterwards more than half the time but maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe everyone hates him but maybe they should. Maybe he’s being hurt over and over again but maybe he deserves it. Maybe this treatment is bad but maybe it’s as good as he’s going to get. Maybe he should just have another drink and lean into it. 

Jon bites down hard on the finger on which he’s long since stopped wearing a ring and muffles a shriek. His eyes flutter open as he grabs his clothes and slips them back on as quickly as possible. He remembers Martin not doing something that he clearly wanted to do when all Jon did was ask. He remembers being allowed to tremble in Martin’s arms and rest his face in Martin’s neck.

Elias takes him by the shoulders and pulls him in for a kiss.

* * *

Peering over the edge of her book across the breakroom table, Sasha decides that yes, Martin does indeed look more anxious and uncomfortable on this fine Monday than he does usually. It’s a pretty tough baseline to beat, but he doesn’t usually spend an entire lunch hour gnawing at just his lip instead of the sandwich in front of him.

She hears Jon’s steps on the tile in the corridor a few seconds before he appears in the doorway, and she considers snapping _Little Dorrit_ closed two pages before the end of the chapter and rushing out. She decides not to. It’s difficult, being upset with someone she likes. The tense environment in the basement is terrible, she wishes it could just go back to the way it was, but she doesn’t know how to stop feeling like she’s going to snap something both callous and useless if she has a conversation with him to clear the air.

Jon comes in through the door and goes over to the electric kettle on the counter, and Martin is on his feet almost instantly. “Oh, let me do it, you go sit down.”

Jon shakes his head. “No, no, I want to.” Sasha frowns, staring at the page before her and not looking at the pair of them. Jon sounds strained.

“You’re sure?”

“It’s just tea, I can--” his voice breaks.

“Jon?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I, I, uh, sorry.” The sentence breaks off into what are definitely sobs and Sasha looks up to see him covering his face with his hands. She gets to her feet, feeling like she shouldn’t _not_ react but not knowing what to do.

Martin reaches out, and Jon flinches back from the touch, hitting his back against the counter and sinking to the floor against it. Martin follows him down and kneels a few inches in front of him. “No touching?” asks Martin.

Jon nods, crying too hard for words to be worth attempting. 

“That’s fine, I can stay back. What would make it less bad?” The anxiety in Martin’s demeanor has lifted instantly and he’s speaking with an assurance Sasha wouldn’t have thought possible five minutes ago.

Jon’s chest heaves irregularly as he tries to get enough air to speak. “I want to be alone.”

Martin’s gaze is soft. “I understand why you say that, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll stay, but do you want Sasha to leave?”

An aggressive nod.

Martin turns to her, she gets the idea, and awkwardly grabs her book. “Feel better,” she tosses over her shoulder as she exits the breakroom. She gets a few feet in the direction of the assistants’ office before slowing, turning back, and standing just beside the doorway, hidden out of sight. Is this an invasion of privacy? Yes. Would Jon absolutely be doing the same thing were their situations reversed? Also yes.

“Are you sober?” asks Martin's quiet voice.

“Mostly,” replies Jon’s shaky one.

“Is there anyone you want me to call for you? Family, friends?”

“No.” 

“Do you want me to explain everything to Tim and Sasha?”

“ _No._ ”

A gap filled only by the damp sound of stuttering breaths around tears, then Martin speaks again. “You said no touching, so can you put your hands in your lap? You’re hurting yourself.” A beat. “Good, thank you.”

Slowly, Sasha backs away from the door. This is a touch too private for her taste, she doesn’t need to hear the minutiae of how her boss gets talked down from whatever panic attack or panic attack adjacent fit he’s having. Something does stick in her mind as she wanders back into the office, however. _“Explain everything to Tim and Sasha.”_ What needs explaining?

“Hey Sash,” says Tim, scrolling through his phone at his desk.

“Hey.” She points behind her in roughly the direction she came. “Jon’s having a crying fit in the breakroom,” she says with a touch of uncertainty.

“Hmm. Odd. I don’t imagine that’s fun.”

“He certainly didn’t look like he was having any.”

“Oh well.” His tone is entirely flat. “Hope he feels better.”

“Yeah, me too.” Sasha settles into her seat and tries to feel normal and not give away how much she’s analyzing the conversation she’s just overheard. Why would Jon not be sober in the middle of the work day? Does he normally hurt himself when he’s upset? Why was he crying in the first place? _What doesn’t she know?_

She spends five or so minutes contemplating while staring blankly at a web page before Martin comes in. “I’m taking Jon back to his place, he’s exhausted,” he says, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair.

“What’s the problem?” Sasha asks.

Martin bites his lip. “Not my place to say.”

Tim huffs. “So you’re both just leaving in the middle of the day for no reason? Why does he need _you_ to hold his hand?”

“Just because I’m not telling it to you doesn’t mean there’s no reason.”

“Then we deserve to know,” says Sasha.

“Yeah, prove it.”

“Neither of you--no one ‘deserves’ to know anything about someone else’s private life. I’ve got nothing to prove.”

Sasha frowns. “Martin, come on. If it’s taking half our department out of work during the day, then we should know.”

Martin takes a deep breath. “Then when was the last time either of you had a conversation with him, hmm? When have either of you talked to him for more than thirty seconds since November? When have you said something to him that wasn’t either an excuse to leave or a blatant insult? Do you think someone who you’ve been treating like that would want to tell you personal information?”

Okay, that stings a bit, but Sasha’s not ready to back down. “How ‘personal’ could it possibly be?”

Martin smiles sharply. “Very, actually.” Pause. “If both of you, with the information you have available, want to hate him--”

“Come on, I don’t _hate_ him,” says Sasha.

“Yeah, that’s pushing it a bit.” Tim stands from his desk chair. “How could I hate him? I’m pretty sure I have him to thank for why people have stopped calling _me_ the Institute slut.”

Martin goes very still. Sasha watches him blink a few times and shake his head. In a quiet voice, he says, “Jon’s going through a really hard time right now. I can’t tell you what it is, but he absolutely doesn’t need any of what the pair of you have been doing. Don’t try and stop me from helping him just because you don’t think you’d do the same.”

Without another word, he leaves the room, and a few seconds later Sasha sees the two of them walk by the door, Jon with Martin’s jacket over his shoulders.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon's got almost negative self worth and Sasha has some suspicions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at like midnight last night I got an idea for a future plot point and actually put the words "OH HO HO terrible idea!" into my outline doc, if anyone was wondering what my writing process is like. oh also easter egg, spot what episode I stole a line from lol.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back? The others’ll be wondering.”

Martin looks at Jon, blanket wrapped around his shoulders and sitting on his sofa at home. His eyes haven’t quite lost their redness yet. “Oh, it can wait. Not like I’m the most valuable team member, anyway.”

Jon chuckles a bit and pulls the blanket tighter around him. “I’m sorry that this is the second time you’ve had to do this.”

“It’s no problem, really. If there’s something you need, I’m happy to do it.” Is it a little inconvenient to make unprompted trips across town in the middle of the day? Yes, but no way is Martin going to say that when Jon has only just managed to not cry for a whole hour. “Whatever it was that set you off, do you want to talk about--?”

“ _No._ ” The answer is firm and immediate. “No I don’t. Don’t even really want to think about it.”

“Okay, okay.” Martin ponders. “What do you usually do to de-stress?”

Jon huffs a laugh and shifts in his seat. “Recently? I’ve been drinking.”

Oh no. Martin rubs his eyes. “That’s another thing--how often are you doing that? Like roughly, how many days a week are you getting drunk?”

“Seven, mostly.”

“ _Jon--_ ”

“I know, I know, that doesn’t sound good.” He sounds exhausted.

“It _really_ doesn’t.”

“It’s just--not a lot still makes me feel better.”

“That sounds really bad, too, actually.”

“It’s fine, it, it just, helps. It helps.” Jon stares at his feet on the carpet and brings his hands to his face, obscuring his vision with the blanket. “Can we not talk about this, either? Doesn’t make me feel great.”

“Jon, alright, listen.” Martin doesn’t want to have this conversation, but if Jon’s here, and he’s basically clear headed, and they’ve got privacy, he’s going to anyway. “I know it’s hard. I know there are a lot of factors at play. I know you’re hurt. But there are several things actively _doing_ that hurt to you and making it worse that I could help with, and you aren’t letting me stop any of them. I’m not going to make you do anything, I swear, but _why?”_

“I don’t know, it’s, I, _ugh._ ” He pulls his knees up to his chest, and with the blanket wrapped around him he’s doing about the closest thing a human can do to a turtle disappearing into its shell. “If it’s just harming _me,_ then it’s _my_ decision, if any of this is even hurting me in the way you mean.”

Martin blinks. “‘If any of this is even hurting--’ Jon, you broke down sobbing on the floor in front of me and Sasha.”

“Martin, _please_. I said I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You--” Martin sputters a bit but gathers himself. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You put down boundaries, I’ll stick to them.”

“Thank you.” Jon twists his arm to look at his watch. “You really should be getting back.”

“In a minute, maybe.” Martin recognizes this desire for solitude all too well, and he knows it well enough to know it’s not a good idea. Leaving Jon alone like this is in nobody’s best interest. “Try to answer honestly: Would you feel better having me stay with you?”

“N--” Jon cuts himself off and stares pointedly across the room away from Martin. “Yes,” he says, eventually, “But you have things to do.”

Martin smiles. “I’ll text Sasha and tell her I'm staying. We can watch some DVDs or something.”

* * *

Sasha looks down at her phone. “Martin says he won’t be coming back in,” she calls over to Tim at his desk.

“Hmm,” he says. “Probably could have guessed as much.”

She slips her phone back in her bag. “Is it just me, or is something weird going on?”

Tim spins experimentally in his chair. “I dunno. Martin was talking like there are some invisible high stakes, but Martin is also, y’know--”

“Martin.”

“Yeah. He sees high interpersonal stakes in a game of solitaire.”

She thinks about what she overheard. “Still, I feel like there’s something else. There are a couple of things that just, sort of, add up to something I’m not seeing.” She thinks about seeing Jon hyperventilate and cry on the ground. “I think I’m going to try and dial back the sending to Coventry.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m not _not_ upset anymore, but it’s been months. If anything, I should be getting annoyed that Jon doesn’t think we’re trustworthy enough to tell about his incredibly obvious long term relationship.”

Tim laughs a bit. “He does seem really jumpy about it. I suppose I’ll follow yours and Martin’s lead, don’t want to be the odd one out. And I suppose there’s something to what he was saying earlier, I don’t know shit about Jon’s personal life, this might be not what he needs.”

“That’s sensible.” Sasha nods, her mind definitely not on what Tim’s saying. It’s not everyday she sees someone she’s known for four years cry for the first time, especially not with such drama. There’s got to be something more than just a bad mood at play. Otherwise, what else would Martin need to “explain”? With a jolt, Sasha realizes she does know someone close to Jon who might be able to tell her more. “Do we have anything that needs running upstairs?”

Tim looks vaguely around his desk and picks up a thick file. “I was going to bring this up later, but I won’t stop you if you’re volunteering. Why, feeling like stretching your legs?”

She gets up and takes it from his waiting hand. “Something like that.”

* * *

Sasha knocks on the Institute Head’s office door.

“Come in,” she hears, muffled by the wood. She pushes it open.

“Hi Elias.”

He looks up from some papers on his desk. “Good afternoon, Sasha. What can I do for you?”

“Tim wanted me to give this to you,” she says, holding the file aloft.

“What is it?”

She gives it a cursory glance. “Couldn’t tell you.”

“Well, I expect it’s important if Tim wanted you to get it to me before the end of the day. You can leave it just there.” He gestures to an empty spot on the edge of the desk.

“Right.” She goes over, puts it down, and almost starts to leave when she remembers her actual aim in coming here. She stops in place. “Elias?”

“Yes, Sasha?”

She fidgets her fingers held behind her back. “Can I ask you a, sort of, personal question? Nothing major, but, y’know.”

Elias properly looks up now, fully shifting his attention away from his work instead of just glancing up. “You may ask, but I might not answer.”

“Do you know if something’s bothering Jon?”

A frown. “What do you mean?”

Hmm, how much to tell? May as well go for most of it. “He had a bit of a cry in the breakroom after lunch earlier, and I’ve never known him to be a crier.”

“Oh, dear.”

“He was pretty shaken up, Martin had to bring him home.”

A deeper frown. “Martin?”

Sasha nods. “Yeah. He alluded to something bigger going on that Jon was dealing with, and you have--” _Pick your words carefully, James,_ “--been pretty close to him lately, so I thought you might know.”

Elias’s eyebrows knit together. 

“I just, if you do know something, I’d like to not be kept in the dark.”

“ _Martin_ said that there was something going on?” He says “Martin” like it’s an alien term. 

Not the element of the story she expected to catch him. “Yes, Martin. Like I said, he brought Jon home. He's still there, actually, helping Jon ride out whatever this is.”

Elias gives a slow nod. “Thank you for telling me, Sasha.”

“So, do you know anything?” She tries to keep the curiosity out of her voice.

“Hmm? Oh, no, I don’t.” He stands up all of a sudden, putting his hand on the small of her back and guiding her towards the door. She squirms and walks faster, getting him off her. Almost as an afterthought, he smiles and adds, “I don’t know anything, but if I find out, I’ll let you know. Thank you, Sasha.”

The door closes in her face. 

Hmm. 

Sasha’s a good researcher. She’s not the bravest, but she’ll swallow anxiety and chase anything if it looks good enough. She’s not the most persistent, but she’ll at least give anything a try. She’s not the most persuasive, but she can get almost anything she needs out of the internet. And she’s not charming like Tim, able to thaw information out of anyone without breaking a sweat, but she can tell what someone’s got something to hide. And boy is she not convinced by Elias.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment of calm amidst chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small disclaimer: there isn't going to be full on romantic jon/martin here because nooo way is jon in any way in the right frame of mind for an actual relationship currently, but jon might be feeling something a bit, who's to say

“Hey, hey Jon? Jon? I think it's time to get you into bed.”

Jon’s vaguely aware of a hand tapping his upper arm, and he looks up at Martin with bleary eyes. “What’s--hmm?”

“It’s better to sleep in a bed than sleep on a couch, come on.”

Jon raises his arms and Martin pulls him to his feet, and the momentum carries him forward, immediately crashing into Martin’s chest. “Sorry, sorry,” he slurs around a face full of jumper. “Bit too drunk, I think.” 

He’d gotten out a bottle after a few hours of watching old episodes of _The Thick of It,_ and had answered Martin’s concerned questions with guilty answers about needing something to help him get more than three hours’ sleep, carefully omitting the part about his little stress weeping fit from earlier not totally having left him yet. He really hadn’t meant to get himself into _this_ state, but he’d never been good at knowing when enough is enough in any context and after a few drinks his brain decided that the best course of action would be to keep drinking right until he passed out. Given how utterly out of it he is, he’s just about succeeded at that.

He comes back to himself, and Martin’s rubbing little soft circles between his shoulder blades and saying something that Jon can’t quite make his dazed head comprehend. It’s probably something very nice. The touch on his back feels very nice. Martin’s very nice. “You’re very nice,” he says.

“Of course.” There’s some sort of emotion in Martin’s voice, but Jon’s spending enough energy on understanding the words whilst keeping his knees from buckling that he doesn’t bother trying to figure it out.

“Bed?” says Jon, his whole body feeling heavy.

“Yes, bed,” says Martin.

A little bit of panic kicks at Jon’s heart as Martin lifts him up to carry and it hits him that he’s made himself entirely defenseless while alone in someone else’s company, but before he knows it he’s being laid down on his mattress, and the last thing he feels is his glasses being pulled neatly off his face.

He wakes up sluggish and in pain as his alarm blares, but nestled comfortably beneath a down quilt and again with ibuprofen and a glass of water on his nightstand. As he sits up and turns the alarm off, he sees his socks and slippers placed neatly by the door. He gets up and walks over to the bathroom to shower, and realizes with a start as he looks in the mirror that he’s almost surprised he’s still dressed. He’s gotten used to passing out drunk around someone meaning waking up naked and a little worse for wear.

He gets ready for work a bit more freely than usual. Elias has a meeting with the library staff during lunch on Tuesdays, and they usually prearrange if he’s to stay after, so his day is his own. Not that it’s not his own if he sees Elias, of course, it’s just that he’s always been one to get anxious about romantic meetings, he can’t remember a first date he hasn’t almost had a panic attack about, it’s no one’s fault but his own if he’s sometimes too stressed to read a full paragraph on days he knows he’s going to see Elias--

Anyway.

The warm water does wonders for his mood, and the trip into work is uneventful. Zoning out on his way down to the street, zoning out on the tube, zoning out on the walk to the Institute. The usual. He’s wearing a long sleeved shirt today, he’s had about enough of the comments about his arms.

He bumps into Sasha on the few steps from the lift into the basement proper, and something about the way she’s standing there makes him think she might have been waiting.

“Morning,” he says, sticking close to the wall to give her room to go by.

“Morning,” she says, smiling brightly. “Feeling better today?”

A hot knife of embarrassment slides itself right between his ribs at the reminder of having had one of his episodes so publicly yesterday, but he mainly manages to swallow the grimace. “Yes, thank you.”

She makes no move to continue on her way.

Jon blinks. “Is there anything else?”

Sasha gives an awkward half-smile. “That whole thing was a bit, well, dramatic--”

Jon is absolutely the last person who needs to be told that.

“--so I kind of, just, want to know what it was about?”

He feels his entire body seize up as he tries to think of an explanation. “I was ill, I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, the stress just sort of came out like that.”

Sasha blinks. “Your face says otherwise.”

He keeps his head facing towards her but his eyes look at the floor. “Look, Sasha, I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine. Just a bad day.”

She angles her shoulder just a little bit as he goes to leave. It’s not enough to actually make the space too narrow for him to move through, but it’s clearly a signal that they’re not done. It’s just similar enough to the actual blocking of an escape route, just familiar enough, that Jon feels his palms start to sweat. “A bad day that took you _and_ Martin out for the rest of work?”

He’s still hungover but now he’s wishing he hadn’t decided against putting a new bottle in his bag today. “Yes. Like I said, I was ill, and you know how Martin is.” He feels guilty about saying that as soon as it’s out of his mouth.

She catches his eye and gives him a piercing stare. “You’re sure?”

He hesitates, but still says, “Yes. Are you being so insistent for any _reason_?”

She purses her lips and looks to consider something. “No,” she says, eventually, and backs up. “No reason. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. Just, let me know if you need anything.” She cringes apologetically. “Sorry if I pressured you.”

“Right,” says Jon under his breath, and he goes back on his way. It’s only after he’s out of earshot of her that it occurs to him that that’s the most she’s spoken to him in months, and despite the content of the conversation, he feels a little glad.

He’s settled at his desk and busy thinking about absolutely nothing as he stares blankly at a web page about document preservation when there’s a knock on his office door.

“Come in,” he calls on instinct, a bit startled.

The door opens, and Martin’s face leans in. “Hey.”

“Oh, hello.” Jon almost relaxes in his seat.

“You get in okay?”

Another ever so pleasant knife of shame twists as Jon considers how he can’t seem to stop making himself look like a complete idiot in front of this man. “Yes, I did.”

“It’s just--” he comes all the way into the room and closes the door behind him-- “you were pretty wrecked last night, so I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“It is.”

“I didn’t really want to leave you there, but I thought inviting myself to stay over would have been a touch too far--”

“Martin.”

“--so I’m sorry if waking up alone made you feel bad, or weird, or anything--”

“Martin.”

“--or if I overstepped any boundaries, touching you or taking off your socks and all that--”

“Martin.”

“--you just, you weren’t communicating very well at that point, not that that’s an _excuse_ \--”

“ _Martin_ ,” says Jon, finally commanding attention by reaching over the desk and taking Martin’s hand. “Thank you. For looking after me. You don’t have anything to apologize for, it was--” he takes a millisecond to bite the bullet of expressing emotions “--it was really nice. It felt good.”

“Oh.” Martin looks down at his hand but doesn’t move. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

Jon smiles.

Martin sits down in the chair across from Jon, and his face gets a bit more serious. “I’m going to ask you something sensitive now, and I have to, but as soon as I get an answer I’ll drop it and go make you tea, alright?”

Jon’s stomach turns, but he nods anyway.

Martin takes a breath. “That was the second time I’ve seen you too drunk to stand in four days, and I only _saw you_ on two of them. And your arms, I’m not sure if that’d exactly be called ‘self-harm,’ I’m not sure how aware you are of doing it, but you’re being hurt and you’re injuring yourself at the same time, so that’s not good. Just, my point is, are you safe?”

Jon furrows his eyebrows.

“Do you think you’re going to do something, on purpose or maybe even accidentally, to seriously hurt yourself?”

It takes Jon a second to figure out exactly what Martin means, and he startles a bit, taking back his hand. “No, no, of course not, Christ.”

“Okay, good.” Martin keeps looking at him steadily, unperturbed by his reaction. “I had to ask. I did some research over the weekend, and you ticked a lot of boxes for warning signs--”

Jon squeezes his eyes closed. “Change the subject, please?”

“Right, right, yeah, of course. I’ll go get on that tea.” He stands up and looks like he suddenly remembers something. “Oh, if you come to the break room, Tim's brought in a box of pastries for us all. Said something about wanting to cheer you up after yesterday.”

“Ah, right.” Martin leaves the room, closing the door with a _click_ , and Jon sits with that information. Martin’s caring about him, Sasha’s talking to him, and Tim did something to help. He smiles to himself in the empty office. He definitely feels better than yesterday.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias launches a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am notoriously bad at knowing how to reply to comments but I am reading them all and you all are saying very nice things and also very funny things, thank you

Elias has made a mistake.

He allowed himself to become overconfident and he made a mistake.

It doesn’t take much thought to figure out where and when Martin learned more than what was his business. At 8:30 p.m. on Friday, he left Jon with Martin and Martin knew nothing, and by roughly 1:30 p.m. the following Monday, Martin knew there was “something bigger going on.” Now, Elias can’t be too presumptuous, it would be foolish to assume that Jon in his severely intoxicated state would have outlined every detail of his recent activities. A thing Elias has always enjoyed about Jon is how much he values privacy in his personal life, it makes him so much less likely to go spilling secrets to the nearest ear, not to mention how rewarding it is to push against. How he squirms under a public kiss, how he struggles to explain a disheveled appearance, how he tugs at the hems of short clothing, _God_ Elias really should get around to that idea he’s been saving--

Nope, a train of thought for another time. Elias has to focus now.

The point is, there’s no reason to assume that the situation is dire and further reveal more than he needs to. If Martin knew everything on Friday, and it’s Tuesday and he hasn’t said or done anything, then that would be odd. Elias just needs to do something to ensure that whatever he does know, he doesn’t share, and that Jon doesn’t step any further out of line. 

Elias thinks he knows the shape of how to achieve this. Jon’s not one to trust easily, and it should be quite simple to corrupt any that already exists.

* * *

Wednesday afternoon.

Sasha heads to Jon’s office to drop something off, but she hears voices inside. For the second time that week, she stops and listens.

“I can call you at quarter to seven, you can say you’re having a family emergency or something,” says a pleading voice that is definitely Martin’s.

“I don’t have any family,” says a weary sounding Jon.

“Then, then, I don’t know, I can pretend my flat’s been infested with, with silverfish or something and I need you to come help.”

“No, Martin.”

“What? Like I’m _not_ the type to be sent into a wild panic over some kind of worm infestation?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Thank you for offering, but I don’t need that.”

“Why not? I take it you don’t have an easy out of your own planned.”

“I’ve been doing this for months, I don’t need one.”

“Christ, Jon, that’s the problem. I’m trying to help, you’re clearly not happy with--”

“ _Stop_.” The word comes out short and low. “Please.”

A beat. “Of course. Sorry, I mither on instinct, I’ll try better to listen.”

“ _I’m_ sorry for always, just--” a pause of looking for words-- “being like this, I suppose.”

“You don’t need to be,” says Martin, simply. “It’s okay if you feel like that, I understand.” A light sigh. “I’ll let you go back to whatever it is you were doing, but really, if you need or want me for _anything,_ even just to talk about things, you can tell me.”

More cryptic, worrying, infuriatingly unenlightening conversation. Sasha hears Martin pushing his chair out, and she quickly backs up a few steps so she can look like she was in the middle of walking up as he opens the door. They exchange a quick nod as she enters through the open threshold.

“Everything I could fact check on that statement you asked about,” she says, laying the few pages of printouts on Jon’s desk.

“Oh, thank you.”

She spies a full tea mug just beside where she’s put down her papers, and she picks it up. “Mind if I have a sip? Forgot to bring in my water bottle today, I'm a bit thirsty.”

“Uh, wait, no, I wouldn't--”

“ _Ugh_.” Sasha scrunches up her face as she swallows, immediately putting the mug back down. 

“I’m sorry, I tried to warn you.”

“What is that? It’s _not_ tea.”

“It actually should still be half tea, or thereabouts.”

“Then what’s the other half?”

“It’s, uh…” He squints down at the desk top, away from her. “Vodka. It’s vodka.”

Sasha stares. “Are you… joking?”

Jon doesn’t look like he’s capable of being more uncomfortable. “No. I mean, you tasted it.”

“Okay.” She can’t think of anything else that would match the flavor. “Then why has half your tea been replaced with vodka?”

“I… wanted some?”

Sasha waits for a few seconds. “That _can’t_ be all you’re going to tell me.”

“I don’t know what else there is to say.”

“Jon, come _on_ , you can’t keep hiding things like this.”

His mouth sets into a hard line. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What’s going on with you? Why are you being so weird? Why are you being so secretive with Martin? Why did you have a breakdown on Monday? And _why_ are you drinking spirits at work?”

“I don’t--”

“At the very least, after everything, I deserve to know what’s going on in my workplace!” Sasha’s angry now. “Can you just give me this _one thing_ , can you just tell me the _truth?_ ”

Jon’s face goes completely still, eyes wide and shining.

Instantly, she feels her mood crumble. Jesus, isn’t this the exact thing she’s been trying to avoid by barely speaking to him for months? “Look, Jon--”

“I am _so_ sorry, Sasha.” He shuts his eyes, as if trying to keep composure as his lip quivers. “I know, I _know_ I can’t seem to stop doing the wrong thing every single time I have the chance. I get the wrong job, I say the wrong thing, I can’t act right, I can’t do what people want, and now I--” A deep, shuddering breath that is far too close to a sob for Sasha’s comfort-- “I can’t tell you. I should, and I’m so, _so_ sorry, but I just can’t.”

His voice on the last words tapers off into a high whine while his breath stutters, and Sasha, for lack of a better word, panics. “I. I didn’t mean for. I’m. I’ll, uh, I’ll just leave you alone, yes?”

He gives a jerky nod and she turns on her heel, walking hurriedly back to the assistants’ office. Martin must be off doing something else, as Tim’s the only one in. On the one hand, God is she glad to not have to explain what just happened to Martin, on the other hand, God would she like Martin to explain what just happened to her.

“Jon’s crying again,” she moans, slipping into her chair.

“Again?” says Tim, more concerned sounding than Monday. “What’s up now?”

“My fault this time. I got frustrated with him about something, and it mixed with _other_ frustrations, and I sort of blew up at him a bit.” She folds her arms on her desk and lays her head down on them. “Then he started tearing up, and I don’t know how to deal with that, so I let him be. Probably not the right thing to do, but I don’t think he would have wanted me staying.”

“Is there anything you want me to do about it?”

She sighs. “Just what you’ve been doing, I suppose. I’m 100% on board with what Martin said now, Jon really doesn’t need us being pissy.”

* * *

Jon comes in through the front door to Elias’s town house and locks it behind him.

“Is that you?” calls Elias, from what sounds like the direction of the bathroom.

“Yes.” He slips off his shoes. “You should just give me a key so you don’t always have to ask who’s come in through your unlocked door.”

Elias comes into view, straightening his cuffs as he walks into the sitting room. “Getting key copies made is always a hassle, I’ve told you before.”

Jon shakes his head a bit. “Right, right, sorry.”

They take a few steps towards each other, and Jon loops his arms around Elias’s shoulders and kisses him languidly. After they break apart, Elias gives a mild shove to Jon’s chest and he stumbles backward, a touch unsteady. “You’ve been drinking already.”

It’s not a question, so Jon doesn’t try to obfuscate. “Yeah. Had a bad day.”

“Oh, poor thing.” He brings Jon in for a hug. “Feeling better now?”

“Yeah, yeah. It was nothing rational, I just got guilty and upset about something and needed an outlet.” He drops his head onto Elias’s shoulder. “I’m more relaxed now.”

“Good.” Elias rucks up Jon’s shirt and runs his fingers over his ribs, and Jon takes a few deep breaths. “Dinner first, or…?”

“I’m not hungry.” Jon takes the opportunity to start kissing Elias’s neck and throw his weight so they fall back to sit on the sofa behind them, landing him in Elias’s lap.

“You’re so fun when you get like this, all frustrated and needy.” Elias puts his hand under Jon’s skirt and rests it on the outside of his thigh, rubbing his thumb below the waistband to Jon’s underwear. Jon feels just a little bit nauseous. “All that being nice to you really is paying off.”

Jon picks his head up from where he’d been kissing Elias’s collarbone. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m sure you remember how I used to talk to you. All those bits of praise and ‘I trust yous’ and other soft nonsense.” 

“So you were just saying that? You didn’t, you don’t really--”

“No, of course I meant it, you have to stop being so insecure and paranoid that I don’t really like you or that my intentions are anything but pure.” He hooks his thumbs into either side of Jon’s underwear and pulls them partly down his thighs, Jon shifting so they can come all the way off. “But I wouldn’t have thought those things, and I _certainly_ wouldn’t have gone out of my way to be that nice to you, if I didn’t think you were so pretty, first.” He smiles, and Jon raises his arms as his shirt’s pulled over his head, carefully not letting his face make an expression. “You know, flirting. Making you sweet on me so I could see you with your clothes off. And hey, it worked.” Elias rakes his eyes up and down as he unzips Jon’s skirt and that too makes its eventual way to the floor.

Jon feels his jaw tense. _Ah._ It’s not Elias’s fault that hearing that hurts, he reminds himself. Not Elias’s fault that he assumed someone would be good to him like that without a motive. If it stings, then it’s on him. He had no reason to think something like that. No one would tell him things like that, no one would do things for him like that, no one would--

His hands freeze for a moment on Elias’s belt.

 _No one_ would.

He swallows and shakes his head. It’s not Elias’s fault if any of that hurts. Besides, he kind of wants it to hurt more, so it works out.

He closes his eyes and kisses Elias as he finishes undoing the other man’s belt.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confused and scared, Jon makes an impulsive decision.

“Jon?” Martin knocks lightly on the Head Archivist’s office door and puts his ear up to the wood. “Can I come in?” No response. The first thing he’s done this morning is come to check on Jon, and he feels like this closed door doesn’t bode well. “Alright then, uh, make a sound if you _don’t_ want me to come in.”

Still nothing.

“I’m coming in, then.”

He pushes open the door to see Jon wearing yesterday’s outfit and sitting folded over at his desk with his head down on crossed arms. Martin approaches the desk and clears his throat.

No response.

“You awake, Jon?”

No response.

He reaches forward and gingerly shakes him by the shoulder.

A sharp intake of breath, followed by flexing hands and a shifting back, followed by Jon lifting his head and looking up with bleary eyes. He furrows his brow at seeing Martin standing before him.

“There you are,” says Martin, giving a half smile. “Been asleep long?”

He gives a glance to his watch and shakes his head. 

“Feeling alright?” _Stupid question,_ thinks Martin almost as soon as he’s said it.

Jon doesn’t answer, instead sitting up straight and stretching his arms out in front of him. As he unfolds himself, his sleeves ride up to reveal new scratches and splotches of dried blood on the exposed skin.

Martin’s heart clenches up. “Can I see?” he says, pointing to Jon’s cuffs.

Jon shrugs, staring vaguely at the seam between the wall and floor on the other side of the room.

“Alright, I’m just going to… just, stop me if you want.” Martin reaches out and pushes the sleeves of Jon’s shirt up to his elbows, revealing new marks up the length of his forearms.

He must be making quite the expression, because Jon catches sight of Martin’s face and mutters, “Sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry, that’s not--” he takes a deep breath. “I’ll get some things to help you clean up, one minute.”

He leaves the room and comes back shortly, bringing with him a paper towel roll, a mug of tap water, and the box of plasters he keeps in his desk. Jon looks up briefly as Martin pulls a chair up next to him, but doesn’t speak. Martin sets his jaw and decides to start on the right arm, wetting some paper towel and starting on trying to clean up the blood. He’s always been glad for his strange ability to manifest assurance and authority when someone else needs help, no matter how anxious and clumsy he is the rest of the time. He flicks his eyes up to Jon, who’s still staring at the other side of the room. He finishes cleaning one wound, and moves on to the next. “Are you drunk?” he asks, aiming for and basically landing on a low-key affect.

Jon makes an “mm hmm” sound and nods, but still looks away.

A reassuring thing to hear at 8:15 a.m. on a Thursday.

“Do you want to talk about this?”

A sniffle, but no response.

Christ, this is bad, isn’t it? Martin’s taking pains to act calmly, but this level of unresponsiveness can’t be normal. Is this… dissociation? Is dissociation what’s happening? God, _why_ didn’t he think to look this up earlier, he should _know_ this! Was Jon acting like this two weeks ago? Yes, Melanie King said he was doing badly enough that she had to leave, but he seemed at least _functional_ before. _No,_ Martin chides himself. _Not “functional,” better at hiding. And_ you _were worse at noticing._ Still. He can’t help feeling he’s just making everything worse. He watches Jon shake with sobs or drink himself silly or show up with his own blood under his nails and Martin _doesn’t do anything_ to stop it, just cleans up after. He’s _trying_ to listen to what Jon wants, he _knows_ that’s the opinion that matters, but there has to be a tipping point somewhere. There has to be a point where Jon’s getting hurt enough that Martin needs to take executive action, but _how is he supposed to know where it is?_

He’s been talking as he’s gone on this thought spiral, saying anything reassuring he can come up with. “Call me anytime,” he finds himself saying, again glad for how steady his voice sounds. “The weekend’s coming up, and it might feel bad to be alone for that long. If you need space to recharge and don’t want to, then that’s fine, too, I’m just. I’m here, alright? _Anything_ you want, _anything_ you need, tell me and I’ll do it.”

Martin’s focused enough on making sure that the blood is cleaned up that he doesn’t notice Jon’s free hand moving until it’s settled on his cheek. He looks up just in time for Jon to lean in and start kissing him.

* * *

Jon doesn’t usually stay over at Elias’s on weekdays, but he hadn’t felt like dragging himself home last night, so he made the decision to spend the long hours of darkness laying next to Elias in silence. He hadn’t been able to sleep, of course, because why the fuck would he be able to get some rest? He just stared at the ceiling, piercing panicking thoughts of _alone your fault alone your fault alone your fault_ getting his heart racing whenever his eyelids would grow heavy, dimly aware that he was going to have to check the sheets for blood when the morning came.

He didn’t want to come into work. Really, he wanted to go home and spend a few months not having to see or talk to anyone, just being allowed to sit in bed for weeks on end, but taking a day off would be good, too. “I don’t want to go in,” he’d said over the breakfast table.

He can’t remember what Elias replied, but he remembers the disapproving click of the tongue and the shake of his head. It didn’t matter, he felt a bit better after getting down the few mimosas Elias fixed him, anyway, the orange juice helping fill his stomach after nearly a day of missed meals.

About forty minutes later, Jon was in the passenger seat of apparently the only man who still drives himself to work left in London, and some time after that he was outside the Institute and sucking on Elias’s lip, and some time after that he was down in his office, which is where he finds himself presently. It’s not quite eight yet, it’ll be maybe fifteen minutes before anyone comes in, and he’s so tired, he’ll just put his head down, it won’t be for long, he just wants to rest his eyes, the basement fluorescents are so bright and his head already hurts, and…

He’s awake again, and there’s someone touching his shoulder. He looks up. It’s Martin. Martin’s touching him. Martin’s asking if he’s been asleep long. He looks at his watch and shakes his head. Not long enough. He feels physically hollow, like there’s nothing behind his ribs and eyes. Martin’s asking how he is, and he doesn’t feel like answering, so he doesn’t. He sits up and stretches instead. 

“Can I see?” says Martin, pointing to his hands. No, not his hands, his wrists. Why his wrists, why--? Oh. Jon looks at his own arms for the first time since waking up and shrugs. He doesn’t care. He’s tired. He wants to go home. Martin says something more and starts touching him again, pushing up his sleeves and exposing his skin. He feels like his arms are numb.

He looks up and Martin’s frowning, his eyes wide and worried. “Sorry,” says Jon.

“No, don’t be sorry, that’s not--” Martin stops himself mid sentence. “I’ll get some things to help you clean up, one minute.”

Jon puts his forehead back down on the desk for a few seconds as Martin leaves, straightening up again when he hears footsteps. Martin comes back in with a few things and pulls a chair up next to him, and part of Jon wants to scramble backwards and another part wants to press his face into Martin’s chest and just _rest._

Martin takes one of Jon’s arms and starts dabbing at it with a damp paper towel. It feels cool and soothing against his skin. “Are you drunk?” asks Martin.

Jon makes a sound and nods. It feels like a weird question, he’s been drunk for about two months now.

“Do you want to talk about this?”

No, Jon is _not_ going to be crying again, he’s been doing that far too much recently. He zeroes in his focus on the soft chill sting of the water on his arm, filtering out the undoubtedly kind things Martin keeps saying at just above the volume of a murmur. It feels nice to be looked after, and it makes Jon’s toes curl in his shoes.

It’s all so easy to tell, now that he’s figured it out. Martin spending time with him, bringing him tea, giving him constant assurances, listening to him, taking opportunities to touch him so sweetly. It’s working, too. Jon craves and basks in these simple displays of attention, sustaining himself on them like a swimmer coming up for air. He’s not sure he could take losing them. He’s not certain there’s anything he wouldn’t do or let happen to keep them.

He can make himself want this, he’s pretty sure. It shouldn’t be hard. 

Without another thought, he puts his hand on Martin’s cheek and kisses him with full force.

* * *

It’s so unexpected that Martin almost doesn’t register what’s happened, and the second it clicks, he puts his hands on Jon’s chest and pushes him backwards.

“Jon, I’ve _told_ you not to do that,” he says, a touch short of breath.

Jon’s eyes are looking more clear and focused. “It’s what you want, right?”

“What? No! Why would you think--”

“It’s okay, you can if you want.” He’s breathing a lot more quickly than Martin thinks he should be as he draws out the words through grit teeth. “I can do it, I won’t, I won’t try and stop you or anything.”

_What?_

Martin doesn’t have time to analyse that before Jon swoops in again, taking hold of the back of his neck and making it harder to separate from him, so when the door swings open, it very much looks like they’re locked in something passionate.

“Fruit basket in the breakroom toda-- _oh for fuck’s sake!_ ”

Jon rockets himself backwards away from Martin as if pulled by a Vaudeville hook, and they both turn to look at the doorway. There stands Tim, wearing an expression of fuming disbelief. Jon looks like he could faint.

“Martin, too? Are you just screwing _everyone_ you want favors from?” Tim takes a few steps into the room, and Jon, despite his shaking hands and mask of absolute shock, gets to his feet and bolts out the door.

_Shit shit shit._ “Jon! No, wait, Jon!” Martin calls, getting to his feet.

Tim, evidently having learned, moves so he’s just blocking the door. “No, you’re not both getting away, I want an explanation.”

“ _Not_ the time, Tim,” says Martin, shouldering through. 

The hallway’s empty.

Fuck.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon looks for comfort and finds something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for more intense sexual violence than there has previously been in this fic

All and all, Sasha’s not that surprised when she hears dueling raised voices coming from Jon’s office. It’s a bit of a jolt, but with how tense things have been getting it was only really a matter of time. However, as she makes her way down the hallway, she is a bit surprised to realize neither of the voices are Jon’s. She’s never heard Martin shout before, and it’s a rare occurrence for Tim. She sticks her head in through the open door and sees them standing in the middle of the room, Tim trying to get the attention that Martin’s giving to his phone screen.

“ _Two minutes,_ he’s been gone for less than _two minutes,_ surely you can--” Tim makes a swipe for the phone and Martin dodges it.

“No, you don’t know what’s happening! You’re just assuming the worst.”

“Then tell me! I am all ears, Martin, just take thirty seconds of your _precious_ time to set my thinking straight. I’m wrong? Fine then, prove it. Tell me I haven’t just been falling for some kind of elaborate guilt trip.”

“I--I can’t. I shouldn’t. I don’t have the time! I need to--” Martin fixes his attention back at his phone screen and keeps tapping away. 

“You’re. Making. Excuses.” Tim practically spits out each word.

“I am not.”

“You see, I think you’re lying. I think you’ve been making up high stakes scenarios because he asked you to get us off his back, and now you’ve been caught red handed you can’t think up an alibi so you’re trying to distract me.”

Sasha steels herself and tries to interject. “Guys--”

“Oh for Christ’s--Tim, I’m not _lying_.”

“Oh yeah? Well how would I know? I haven’t got anything else to go on.”

“Guys--”

Martin takes a long deep breath that’s almost reminiscent of cartoon characters blowing steam out through their nose and ears. “Is it really so hard to just consider that you're wrong about this?”

“Seeing as you’ve got a pretty good track record for pulling off deception, Mr. University Graduate, yes, actually.”

Martin seizes up. “Seriously? Are you _seriously_ threatening me? Is that what’s happening right now?”

“What? No.” 

“ _Guys--_ ”

Tim takes a step back. “I’m just saying, when everything I’ve seen points one way, and I know you can lie, you can see why I’d have a difficult time believing a word out of your mouth. You’re redirecting _again._ ”

“ _Ugh_ , what do I have to do to convince you I’m not?”

“Tell me why you tried to stop him leaving! Tell me why you’re trying so hard to get him to text back!”

“I’m worried.”

“About?”

“I _can’t say._ ”

“ _Guys--_ ”

“Well isn’t that _ever_ so convenient? Anything that could prove to me that you aren’t just fucking him, too, and that he’s getting you to make us feel sorry for him, you ‘can’t say!’”

Martin twists up his mouth and gets ready to respond.

“ _HEY!_ ”

Both sets of eyes snap to Sasha.

Sasha generally doesn’t like shouting. She’s got powerful lungs and she doesn’t want to cry wolf when there isn’t an emergency. Perpetually bickering coworkers may be as close to an emergency as there's going to be down here. She flicks her eyes back and forth between them. “Can someone, without blowing out my eardrums, please explain to me what’s happened?”

Tim doesn’t waste a second. “I caught him and Jon snogging--"

" _Tim_ ," sighs Martin.

"--then Jon ran away, and now he’s being weird.”

 _Ah,_ thinks Sasha. “Ah.”

“That’s not--ugh.” Martin puts his phone down on the desk and drags his hands through his hair. “That all happened, but it really isn’t what it sounds like, I promise.”

Sasha comes further into the office and looks around. She… believes him, she’s pretty sure. She's not pleased with him, but it's not hard to believe. For each weird thing that would be explained by him also sleeping with Jon, there’s another that wouldn’t. The crying, the drinking, the poorly concealed secrets coming from all directions, and now--

“Is that blood?” She says, pointing to a wad of damp and lightly dyed red paper towels on the desk.

“Is _what_ blood?” Tim twists to look where she’s directing. “Oh.”

It’s Martin’s turn to be suddenly turned towards, and his face sets hard. “Yes it is.”

“Whose blood? Also why?” If Sasha had a nickel for every time she accidentally discovered something in this office and the person with the explanation refused to explain.

“Can we just, can we drop this now? I need to make sure Jon’s alright.” He picks up his phone and briefly checks the screen.

“You're not bleeding,” says Tim, ignoring what Martin said, “So it must be Jon’s.”

She nods slowly, and an idea sparks in her head that makes her heart drop. “Martin, why are you so worried about him?”

Martin turns his eyes to his shoes. “I can’t say, I _promised_ I wouldn’t say.”

Sasha looks sidelong at Tim. Even he seems to have felt the temperature of the room drop, and he tries to laugh. “He’s an adult who’s been caught out doing something he wasn’t meant to, he’s probably just gone home. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”

* * *

Elias chuckles. “Forty minutes apart from me was it this time?”

Glass in hand, Jon leans sideways into him, sitting on the sofa in the Institute Head’s office. He tucks his face into Elias’s chest. “I know.” He feels ridiculous here in Elias’s arms, trembling like a leaf, gulping down liquor, and trying very hard to not burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I don’t know… I got upset and needed--” _to get out of there_ “--you.”

“Oh, poor thing.” Elias squeezes him tight for a few seconds.

The second he’s released, Jon grabs the decanter and pours himself another drink. God, he’s pathetic. He screws up everything with Martin and Tim and instead of going back downstairs and apologizing like a normal person he runs away and gets busy getting wasted before nine a.m. just to calm down. He feels his body vibrate under his skin.

“Who was it that upset you?”

Jon takes a few sips. “What?”

“I take it you didn’t just sit alone in your office for half-an-hour before running up here on the brink of tears. Was it your assistants?”

Silently, Jon nods, then adds, “My fault, though.”

Elias puts his hand on Jon’s back and Jon shivers. “I’m sure it had more to do with them, at least. This isn’t the first time you’ve been upset like this after seeing them.”

Jon looks at him quizzically. 

“There have been other times before, but this past week especially. Yesterday you said you ‘had a bad day,’ and someone told me you had a bit of an episode on Monday.”

A current of revulsion shudders through Jon’s body. “I didn’t know you knew about that.”

“It’s my Institute, I find things out. Look, my point is, I don’t think they’re very good for you. I mean, look at yourself.”

He is acutely aware of how he looks. Day old clothes, bloody scabs, red eyes, deeply etched dark circles beneath them. 

“If you want to keep working with them, fine, but I think you should try and stop talking to them as much, and definitely stop taking what they say to heart. It hurts you.”

He finishes his glass and pours another. His eyes burn. “Okay.”

“‘Okay?’ Just like that?”

“If you say so.”

“I’m not trying to doubt you, but I feel like you’re just saying that. Is that something you’ll actually do?”

“Yes.” Jon can’t help that the word comes out laced with bitterness. He’s miserable and exhausted and getting increasingly drunk, he can only hold it in so well. “I _told you_ I didn’t want to come in today, I knew I’d have problems, but you still _made me_.”

“Hey, hey, you don’t need to get angry. Don’t snap at me, I’m not the bad guy here.”

“I, I know, I’m sorry.” He deflates and puts his free hand over his eyes. “I don’t feel well.”

Elias comes in and kisses his neck, and Jon feels a hand on the inside of his thigh. “I can make you feel better.”

Jon takes a quick sip of his drink. Fuck it. This has never worked before, but fuck it, might as well try. “Not right now, Elias.”

Another kiss to his neck. “Why not?”

“I said I’m not feeling well.”

“And? This will help.”

“No it won’t.”

“I think it will.”

Jon feels Elias’s hand go right the way up between his legs and he _can’t fucking take this right now._ “I’ll scream if you keep going,” he blurts.

Elias is off him in less than a second. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t want to, and I’m not gonna let you. Try again and everyone on the other side of the door will know what I think about it.”

“Jon,” Elias’s voice is low and stern, “I know you’re upset, but I don’t like what’s gotten into you.”

Jon feels tears prick his eyes. Fuck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just--” his voice breaks and warm rivulets start to spill over onto his cheeks. _Fuck._ “I really can’t right now. You want to, and I’m sorry, but I can’t, I feel, just, so--” he has to stop speaking as sobs overtake him. Quickly he drains his glass and again buries his face in Elias’s chest. Elias’s arms wrap around him.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. Tell me about it.”

Jon shakes and cries as he tries to get words out, pulling them like teeth. “I, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m tired all the time but I keep having nightmares, my head hurts, no, _everything_ hurts, I feel empty and alone and scared and guilty and I just, I want it to _stop_.” He pauses for breath before the next part. God, he was so sure answering Martin’s question two days ago. He presses his eyes closed. “I think I might hurt myself.”

“Oh, Jon.” A hand comes up to gently hold the back of his head. “I’m sorry you’re feeling like this.” A kiss on his forehead. “How about you rest here and collect yourself while I get a bit of work done, and then I’ll bring you home, alright? Yours, of course, since I’ll have to come back in.”

Jon nods. “Thank you.”

In a minute or two, Elias slips out the door to go talk to someone in the library, and Jon’s left by himself. He pours another drink.

* * *

Within the hour, Jon’s stumbling his way out of the Tube stop nearest his block of flats with Elias’s steadying arm around his waist. He may have misjudged how much he could drink and still be alright for the journey, but he’ll be home soon enough anyway, free to collapse as soon as he’s crossed the threshold. The amount he wants to just black out and stop thinking is frankly astonishing.

His foot catches on an unaligned brick and he trips forward a bit. Elias catches him before he can hit the ground, but it gives him pause to look at his surroundings. He blinks at them. “Are we going the right way?” he slurs.

Elias smiles. “Yes, just a slightly different route. Wanted to pass by somewhere.”

“Okay.” He lets his head rest on Elias’s shoulder and he loses focus for a few more minutes. Next time he comes back to himself, they’re behind some building that he just about recognizes, in an old empty courtyard with rain stained pave stones and some wildly growing plants around the edges. Yes, he thinks he knows where they are, his flat is about two blocks in another direction. _Weird route,_ he thinks.

Without warning, his back is up against the wall of the building and Elias’s tongue is up against the back of his throat. He makes a noise of surprise and squirms under the body pressed flush against him. Eventually, Elias pulls away, and Jon rakes in air.

“Don’t, don’t do that,” he says, squinting.

Elias grins. “Actually, I will.” He swoops back in, this time sliding his hands up under Jon’s shirt as he pins him to the wall. Jon properly struggles, but he’s much too weak right now to make a difference.

“Stop, stop,” he pants when he next gets the chance. He’s hyper aware of every noise around them, listening for anything that might be footsteps. Elias crowds him again, going for his neck this time and giving him room to keep speaking. “What are you do-- _ah, ah._ ” A knee has slid right up between his legs and is applying quite the pressure. “No,” he gasps, understanding zinging through his slowed mind. “No, not here. Wait a minute, we can get to my flat, not here.”

Elias laughs low against Jon’s ear. “But I _want_ to have you out here.”

Jon’s head is swimming with alcohol and a finely distilled panic. This can’t happen, this can’t _be_ happening, Elias isn’t, he wouldn’t-- “ _No."_ He doesn’t get to finish the thought as Elias pulls his shirt up over his head. His arms feel like rubber as they’re pulled up for it to come off, the only clear sensation being the blood thrumming through the arteries. The chill April air hits his skin and he wants to collapse in on himself, the exposure almost hurting in and of itself. His mouth is filled with cotton as he searches for anything to say. “I’ll scream,” he manages.

Elias grabs his wrists and the knee presses in harder, Jon feeling his whole body start shaking. “Will you? Will you scream and have someone come find you like this? We’re so close to where you live, they might even be someone you see everyday, someone sympathetic. Do you want to do that?”

Jon tries to form words but everything dies in his throat. His whole mouth is numb, though that helps a bit when Elias starts kissing him again and bites his lips. He sputters out “ _No_ ” and “ _Stop_ ” and “ _Don’t_ ” every opportunity he gets. He finally gets a proper break when Elias backs up and starts taking down his skirt and pants. “ _Please,_ ” he says around tears. Apparently he’d started crying again at some point. “I’ll do anything, just _stop._ There has to be something you want.”

Elias pauses, he hands wrapped around the back of Jon’s hips. “Oh, there is.”

Jon’s heart almost stops dead from the rush of relief. “What?”

“This.” He takes his hands away, and the offending items of clothing drop to the ground. Suddenly, Jon’s entirely naked in some unknown courtyard in London in broad daylight. His knees buckle under him, but Elias catches him around the armpits. “Stay standing or I fuck you on the ground.”

That scares Jon enough to let himself be propped back up, crying all the way. “Please, please, _please_ stop,” he begs as he hears a zipper undo.

Elias doesn’t respond, just grabs him by the back of his thighs and shoves his bare back up the rough wall a few inches. “Put your arms around the back of my neck.”

Jon stares at the gray sky.

“Do it.”

He loops his arms over Elias’s shoulders, and with how hard pressed he is against the wall, he doesn’t slip as his legs are lifted forward and off the ground.

He forces himself to keep his eyes open as it happens. Elias kisses his lips sometimes, and he’ll close them for that, but otherwise he keeps them open, watching. He hears every sound, every hitch of his own and Elias’s breath, hoping beyond all reason that someone will come, that no one will come.

No one does.

Elias finishes by putting some new dark spots on his neck. He’s not sure if his wrists will bruise, and he figures maybe Elias isn’t either and wants to make sure something will be left to show. Jon’s feet find their way back to the ground, and the second all contact with Elias is severed, he collapses, sitting crumpled among his discarded clothes. Elias says something, but he doesn’t listen, eyes fixed unfocused on his shoes.

And with that, he’s alone.

He puts his head on his knee and tries to cry, but he can’t seem to now.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan Sims vs. the weekend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two things:  
> one- in chapter ten, I made a typo and said it was wednesday when it was actually thursday. I've now fixed it but knowing what day it was is a bit important for this chapter.  
> two- this is another really heavy one. it doesn't end nearly so badly as the last one, but it's severe enough that I've put more cws in the end notes.

**THURSDAY**

After some indeterminate amount of time, and for a lack of anything else to do, Jon tugs his clothes back on his shaky body and struggles to his feet. His limbs are just nerves and his skull is full of soup but he manages to get back to his flat without too much falling over. He gets some strange looks on his way ( _Where were all these people before? Why did no one come?_ ), but his journey’s mostly unbothered. The door clicks shut behind him and he contemplates sinking to his knees and going to pieces right then and there on the floor, but he keeps himself together long enough to trudge into the bathroom and be violently ill into the toilet. 

As he sits back against the wall, nausea pulsing through him as it subsides, he pulls out his phone from where he’d kept it tucked in his boot. About a dozen texts and two missed calls from Martin. He dismisses the notifications, tosses it lightly out the door into the hall, and hits his head against the wall behind him. It hurts. He does it again.

He doesn’t think he’s going to be sick again, so he gets to his feet again and puts his face under the faucet for a few mouthfuls of water. He’s so hungry it’s almost painful to swallow.

He really wants some proper sleep. He’s been awake for nearly thirty hours, but he knows there’s only one way he can make sure he doesn’t gasp awake every forty minutes like usual. He kicks off his shoes as he stumbles to the kitchenette in his sitting room, squinting at the midday sunlight reflecting off the polished stone countertops. He’s not often here at this time, and the soft rays making the whiskey bottle he’d left out yesterday _glitter_ feels wrong. He gets a couple of glasses down from the cabinet and mechanically fills them. With everything already in his system, he could probably knock himself out with three drinks. He has five.

He sits at the counter and waits the few minutes for it to hit, staring down at himself and weighing the benefits of burning his clothes on his flat’s bit of balcony. If he kept them on, would they still burn? Could he grow new skin if this one charred off? Would it be worse for someone to come looking for him and find burnt remains or for no one to care whether or not he’d tuned to ash? With the amount of alcohol he’s been soaking himself in for weeks upon weeks, he reckons he’d catch fairly easily.

He’s shaken out of that train of thought as the world tilts around him and he finds his cheek laying on the wooden floorboards. Ah, right. Passing out. Passing out had been his aim. The sofa’s all the way on the other side of the room, his bed unimaginably further. Sleeping here will be as good as anywhere. He closes his eyes, and everything finally stops.

* * *

He wakes up with pain blaring in his head like a foghorn, ripping him out of oblivion and dropping him right into visceral clarity. Fuck, fuck, the ibuprofen’s fucking, uh, still in his bedroom, right? Yeah, right where Martin left it.

Another stab of pain behind his eyes, and Jon’s getting up and staggering to his bedroom. Before he knows it, he’s swallowed two pills and gone back to the bathroom to shower. No way he’s getting to sleep again until the headache’s subsided, might as well wash off the sweat and grime while he waits.

He feels disgusting as he peels off his clothes, revealing dirt and bits of gravel stuck to his flesh. He slams the shower on as hot as it goes, waits to see steam, and steps inside. It hurts and he doesn’t move, water pelting brown skin until it’s almost red. He washes his hair and body. And again. A third time. The skin on his knuckles starts to bleed. He turns off the shower.

He doesn’t move the clothes from where they lay on the bathroom floor as he traipses out, instead grabbing some clean loose pyjamas from a cupboard in the hall and falling into bed, his wet hair feeling awful on the pillow.

* * *

**FRIDAY**

His alarm goes off at 7 a.m. as it always does. He stares at it for a minute, letting it shriek all it wants before clicking it silent. He doesn’t want to get up. He doesn’t get up. He’s basically been asleep since roughly noon yesterday, and he’s still tired. He closes his eyes.

* * *

When he next wakes, the clock reads 10:47 a.m. and he is _so hungry._ He doesn’t want to eat, but he thinks he might genuinely get too weak to do anything about it if he doesn’t soon.

Two minutes pass and he slaps some bread in the toaster and some whiskey in a mug. His head hurts. His arm’s bleeding again. They’re probably wondering where he is at work, he doesn’t just not show up like this. That’s not something Jonathan Sims would do. The smell of the toast starts to make him feel sick, so he throws back his whiskey and gets his phone from where it’s still laying in the hall.

Sixteen texts and four missed calls from Martin. Three texts from Sasha. One from Elias. He dismisses the notifications, changes his settings so they stop showing up, drops his phone again, and throws up bile and alcohol into the toilet.

He goes back for his toast and eats it plain. After a moment of thought, he has a few spoonfuls of peanut butter, too. As soon as he’s reasonably certain that he’s not going to faint, he takes the whiskey bottle over to the sofa, turns on Channel Four, and starts working on stopping his ability to think.

* * *

**SATURDAY**

Jon is fairly certain he’s hit the peak of human knowledge: you can’t get hangover headaches if you make sure you’re never completely sober. His head still hurts when he wakes up on the floor clutching an empty bottle, but it’s less bad than it would be if he hadn’t still been drinking less than six hours ago. This level of headache just seems to be a permanent fixture now, he’ll have to adjust.

He sits up with his back against the sofa and he can tell almost instantly that it was a bad idea. His heart drops out from where it should be and he gets enough vertigo at just sitting upright that he has to put his head between his knees and count out breaths. Can he stop feeling sick all the time? Please? He’s not had a full meal since Wednesday morning, there’s not anything left to throw up. Actually, speaking of, eating still doesn’t sound good, but he knows he should make himself do it again. 

On his feet. At the kitchen counter. Taking out eggs. Taking out a new bottle of something strong. Scrambling eggs. Drinking right from the neck. Sitting down. Eating eggs.

It suddenly occurs to him that it’s Saturday. The weekend proper. He’s not having a breakdown, he’d be home today no matter what happened. He can quit being so nervous for now, he’s not going to get any calls or knocks on his door looking for him on the weekend. No one will worry about him and no one will check on him.

No one will worry about him and no one will check on him.

He washes down his last mouthful of unseasoned egg with a swig of whatever it is he’s got. He puts the bottle down experimentally. He could leave it at that. But then the headache and the shaking and the terror and the shame and the guilt and the loneliness and the feelings and the ideas and the--

He picks up the bottle again and drinks for a good minute.

* * *

Jon made the mistake of looking at a calendar. Tomorrow is Sunday. That’s the day before Monday. And Monday’s work. He doesn’t think he can get away with just no-showing again, and he can’t make himself think up something to say that wouldn’t sound like an incredibly transparent lie to cover “I’m a fucking child and too busy feeling awful and throwing an extended tantrum to leave my home.” The more he thinks about it, the more he can’t think. 

He can’t go into work. He can’t see them. He can’t see _him._ He can’t be there. He can’t function. He can’t even fucking look at his phone without hyperventilating how the fuck is he supposed to see people and be seen in turn?

He can’t just stay here. He can’t eat by himself. He’s getting sicker and sicker. He hates himself more every second he stays locked up in his bubble. The idea of going shopping outside alone almost sends him into hysterics.

He can’t breathe. No, really, he can’t breathe. Fuck, fuck. _Panic attack._

* * *

**SUNDAY**

Tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday. His world ends tomorrow.

He figures he may as well go out on a high, and slams back spirits until he can’t see straight and blacks out again.

* * *

His reflection looks terrible. Who is that? It can’t be him. Sunken face, red eyes, greasy skin, snarled hair. He’d never let himself look like that. Yes, he’s got a tendency to work a little too hard and a little too long, but he has an appearance he likes to maintain. He wants to be respected and liked, and people won’t respect and like someone who looks like this, who can’t even pull himself together after a bad week, who can’t even get past one incident, who can’t even think about going into work without wanting to--

His head hurts. His head hurts and that’s why he opens the cabinet behind the mirror and takes out the unopened box of paracetamol. It’s a good painkiller, he doesn’t know why he hasn’t been using it. That’s a lie, actually, he does know why. He hasn’t been using it because you’re not meant to take it with alcohol, and, well.

He turns the box over in his hands and finds the instructions. Eight is the maximum dose for a day, and there are four times that in the box. Good to know, good to know, he wouldn’t want to overdose by accident. That would be bad. He opens the package. How much more dangerous is it to take them with this much liquor in him? He supposes he could look it up if he wanted.

His thumb nail cuts easily through the foil encasing each pill. He takes out two. Four. Twelve. Twenty. Thirty-two. He needs two hands to hold them, the dangerous weight feeling almost like nothing. He’s not _going to,_ obviously, he wouldn’t. He _wouldn’t_. He… he wouldn’t.

He could, though.

When he thinks about it, hasn’t he been trying to make it all stop this whole time? Isolation, oblivion, avoidance, fantasies of staying home and sleeping for months, it’s all just shades of the same thing. He doesn’t want to have to face any of them, he doesn’t want to have to see them and see how they hate him. He already knows. He _knows_ how detestable he is, he _knows_ it’s his fault, he _knows_ he's just _wrong_ in all sorts of ways and he can’t make himself be better, he doesn’t want to have to hear it back from someone else. He doesn’t want to be alone with Elias, he doesn’t want to be in public with Elias, he doesn’t want to _see_ Elias, he doesn't want _it_ to happen again. 

He’s disgusted with how afraid he is.

Pills are almost too good for him, really, but they’re easy and available. He should hurt more. At least he can reconcile that, that he deserves pain, even if it’s hard to follow through on.

His hands are slick with sweat.

* * *

In the middle of microwaving himself a meal, Martin’s phone rings, and he almost faints with relief at seeing the caller ID. “Thank Christ,” he mumbles to himself as he picks up, then immediately fixes his tone into something brighter. “Hi Jon! What’s up?”

A deep, shaky breath. “Martin?”

Martin’s relief is quickly replaced with a block of tension. “Yes, it’s me. Is something wrong?”

“Um, yes, actually. I’m--” a sniffle-- “I’m not doing well.”

His microwave starts beeping, but he ignores it. Jon’s voice is thick with tears. “What do you mean?”

“Something happened on Thursday, and it, I, I don’t--” another gasping breath. “Sorry, I’m a bit off, I’ve had too much to drink, and I know, ‘what else is new?’ but I’m _really_ not feeling--Sorry. Off track. Something bad happened. Haven’t been doing a good job coping.”

Martin chooses his words carefully. “Was it something Elias did?”

A sound like a choked laugh mixed with a sob, then, “Mm hm.”

Fuck. "How are, uh, what have you been doing?"

Another strange, garbled chuckle. "I think some people call it a 'bender'?"

"Oh, Jon."

"Haven't really been eating, had a few panic attacks, and I… did some other things. Nothing's been _good_ , but today was, it was really bad."

Martin's eyes unfocus as he concentrates solely on the conversation. “Are you okay?”

A louder laugh. “No, I’m really not.”

“No, shit, sorry, that’s not what I meant, I more meant, uh, just, it sounds like--" Martin feels like he has two left feet but verbally-- "are you in danger? Have you done something to hurt yourself?”

Pause. “I haven’t, no.”

“Do you think you’re going to?”

“That’s actually, um, that’s why I called you.”

“Oh _Jesus_.” Please don’t let this be some kind of note.

“I haven’t done anything, I swear. I mean, nothing more than usual. But I almost did, and I don’t think, I don’t think I’m safe. I’m sorry, I _know_ it’s late, I _know_ I was weird the last time you saw me, I mean, I’m not much better now, but can you come over? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I don’t trust myself. I need help, Martin.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” As he speaks, Martin slips on his shoes with just his feet and grabs his coat off the rack. As he shrugs it on, he almost feels his layer of assurance come with it. “Thank you for calling instead of… just, thank you for calling. If you want me to bring you to A&E, I can book the cab now so it’s ready when I get to you.”

“ _No,_ no, I don’t want that. That’s too much everything; people, lights, moving.”

“That’s fine, I just thought I should mention. Alright, I can be there in about thirty minutes, but do you want me to stay on the line until then?”

“No, I can stand half-an-hour.” A few stuttering sobs. “Thank you so much.”

“Of course, anytime. Okay, I’m hanging up, but I’ll be there soon. Alright?”

“Alright.”

“See you then.”

Martin hits the red phone button and flies out the door.

* * *

Martin’s not in Jon’s flat for thirty seconds before Jon’s a crying mess in his arms on the sofa. Jon had told himself he was going to hold it together, but apparently his need for comfort bypassed all ability for self control in an instant and he curled right up into Martin’s lap. Martin’s being wonderfully nice about it, cradling the back of his head with a gentle hand and whispering soft reassurances as he shakes with full body sobs. He tries to speak a few times, but it doesn’t really work, only managing an occasional strangled “I’m sorry” or “thank you.”

He tries to focus on the feeling of Martin’s grip on his head. He’s rubbing almost imperceptible little circles into Jon’s hair and scalp with his fingertips. Zeroing in on that does wonders for his heart rate, and he eventually calms down, each breath coming easier than the last. When he’s gone a few minutes without choking on his own tears again, he swallows and says, “Sorry about all the waterworks. I shouldn’t talk to anyone when I’m like this, getting drunk and upset makes me _so_ needy.”

“This is exactly when you should be talking to people, Jon. If you need something, then you should get it.” Martin looks down at him, face all sympathy. 

Jon doesn’t acknowledge the comment. “Elias usually--” the name off his tongue makes him want to cry again, but he pushes past it “--he’d usually have had my clothes off twenty minutes ago. He thinks it’s fun to fuck me when I’m in this state ‘cause I’ll be glad for any attention.”

Martin squeezes him in closer. “I’m sorry he does that, you deserve far better.”

Jon peers up through his eyelashes and holds his breath. He has to say it. “You wouldn’t want to try?”

Martin’s not getting it this time. “Want to try what?” A beat. He loosens his grip around Jon. “Oh Christ, this again? No, absolutely not! I would never try anything like that with you, _especially_ not when you’re feeling like this.”

Martin’s gotten a tad louder, but Jon stays at his quiet rasp. “You don’t have to pretend if you don’t want to. Why else would you be so nice to me? Why’d you agree to come over after dark?”

“To help you. Because you deserve it,” says Martin without a second of waiting. He blinks. “Is that another idea that came from Elias?”

“I…” Jon thinks and slowly traces back the thought. “Yes. We had a conversation the other night, and I was, well, not unlike this but not as bad, something had upset me earlier and… that part doesn’t matter. He said something about how it was worth charming me a while ago so he could have me now, and how a main reason a person would have to be good to me was if they already wanted me.”

Martin, seemingly forgetting why he’d just let Jon go, pulls him in close again, head flush against chest. “That _isn’t_ true, Jon, okay? People will be decent to you because they want to be decent to you. He said that to be horrible and make you feel worthless.”

“What?” The pieces click together in Jon’s head. “Oh. _Oh._ ” 

Martin’s hand ghosts over his back as he trembles. “It’s alright. You didn’t deserve that, he’s horrible. I’m sorry.”

“No, no.” Jon picks his head up. There’s a touch of glee in his voice. “I’m not sad to hear that, not really, it feels. It feels good, actually.” He laughs almost manically and puts a hand over his face. “Oh my God, it’s _so_ obvious, I just didn’t put it together. A trans-fucking-parent tactic, and it _worked_. It worked _totally_.”

Martin squints with worry written across his brow. “You sound kind of happy for someone who’s just realized they’ve been manipulated like that.”

“No, I’m not _happy,_ I’m… It wasn’t true. I really thought it was true, and it wasn’t. You don’t, you’re just, you don’t want to do that.”

Martin’s arms tighten around him again. “Of course I don’t, I’d never hurt you like that.”

“I’ve got so many problems, _God_.” Jon tries to play that part off lightly, running his hands down his face and cringing to himself, but he makes himself keep his eyes open and aware as he says the next thing, pulling syllables like teeth. “I really need help. I can’t think right, I’m afraid all the time, and I nearly did something really bad tonight.” _Breathe deep, ignore the nausea_. “I need to tell Tim and Sasha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for:  
> \- internalized victim blaming and terrible self-talk  
> \- vomiting  
> \- binge drinking  
> \- disordered eating  
> \- self harm  
> \- suicidal thoughts/potential suicide attempt  
> I think that's all the main ones but please let me know if I should add any more!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation between the Archives staff.

It’s not too long before Martin notices that Jon’s fallen asleep in his arms. Not wanting to create a situation where Jon could potentially wake up and think himself alone, he lays his head back on the pillows behind him and tries to drift off as well.

* * *

Sitting at the kitchen table, Jon wrinkles his nose. “No coffee, I’ll just be sick.”

Martin frowns. “Alright then, tea it is. Are there any soups in any of these cabinets?”

“Uh, if there are, they'll be in there.” Jon points to one just above Martin’s head, and he opens it and routes around until he finds something satisfactory.

He remembers something of what Jon said on the phone last night. “What have you been eating since I last saw you?”

A guilty expression pinches Jon’s face. “Some toast Friday morning, some eggs Saturday, I think a few crackers yesterday.”

Ah. Not good. “Any fluids? Water?”

Jon looks pointedly at his hands folded on the tabletop. “A few mouthfuls from the tap sometimes, but mainly just alcohol.”

It crosses Martin’s mind to say something along the lines of _And you wonder why you’re so nauseous?_ before quickly stamping on it, instead filling a cup with water and placing it on the table before Jon. “And you’re sure you want to talk to them today instead of resting a few days?”

Jon takes a sip from the glass. “I’ve _been_ resting a few days, it didn’t get me anywhere good.”

Martin bites his tongue and gives Jon a good long stare. He looks bloody awful, sick and small and scared and sad. Martin just wants to give him a week of hot meals, regular sleep, and kind words. But it’s Jon’s decision. If he wants to do it today, then it’s today. “I’ll text them after I get this soup heated up.”

* * *

martin: hey you guys know what jon’s address is right?

sasha: I do, I think tim does too

sasha: why?

tim: yeah why

martin: I need you guys to come round here at 11:30

sasha: again, why

tim: wait you didn’t come in this morning

tim: ffs you’re really telling us you spent the night

martin: benefit of the doubt, tim

martin: I can’t say why just yet, but you’ll find out when you get here

martin: you’re both really going to need to be ready to give the benefit of the doubt and believe what you hear, got that?

tim: mm yeah just what I’d expect to hear from a man ready to give a coherent and true explanation

martin: okay tim I’m being serious right now, behave yourself or you;ll really end up doing harm

martin: sasha?

sasha: I can leave the room if I get angry or something, dw

martin: that’s alright

martin: have to go, see you then

* * *

The bell rings, and Jon’s heart lurches into his throat. It must show on his face, because Martin stops him and puts a hand on his shoulder as he goes to buzz them in.

“You don’t have to do this,” says Martin. “I can meet them downstairs and explain on my own, you don’t have to see them, not if you don’t want to.”

Jon swallows. He can hear his own heartbeat. “I don’t want to,” he starts, slowly, “but I think I need to. I can, I can do this. It’s just a conversation. Besides--” he tries to force a laugh-- “we were all researchers for years, they’ll want a primary source.”

Martin stands for a second, then takes his hand off Jon’s shoulder and nods.

He hits the button to let Tim and Sasha into the building.

* * *

Jon taps his fingernails on the ceramic mug of tea resting in his lap. He doesn’t have a lot of seats, so he’s perched on the edge of a table by the window while Tim and Sasha take the sofa, Martin on the chair across from it. He wishes he’d changed, he’s been wearing these pyjamas for at least four days in a row. The little _clink_ sounds of the mug fill the entire room. He only feels a little bit like he’s going to have another panic attack, so small victories and all that.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says after a minute of quiet. “Just trying to find, uh, a place to start.”

“Can you give us a general topic of what this is about?” says Sasha. She’s leaning forward in her seat like she’s about to watch a new episode of her favorite TV programme.

“Uh.” Jon tries to think. “Me, I suppose.”

“Anything else?”

 _Taptaptap taptaptap._ “It’s not good.” _Taptaptap._ He is _not_ going to fall apart before he’s barely even started talking. “Um,” he says. “Uhh.” The seconds stretch on between his attempts at starting. His mouth is dry and his jaw is foreign and he feels his blood pumping in his throat as he tries to talk and he really really wishes he had something stronger than tea in his mug. He takes a sip anyway, trying to see if he can placebo himself into loosening up. “Maybe it’ll help if you say what _you_ think this is about?”

Tim sighs and falls against the sofa back, clearly not taking the question seriously. “Maybe you’re going to tell us that you’re screwing Elias and probably Martin, too, even though we already know.”

Jon clenches his teeth together and doesn’t move a muscle.

Sasha purses her lips and gives Jon a long stare, ignoring Tim. “Something that’s really upsetting you and that Elias and Martin both already know about.”

For some reason, that makes Jon shake a little bit with controlled laughter. “You’ve always been observant.” Another sip of tea. “Uh, Elias, I, I started… _seeing_ Elias last autumn.”

“We _know._ ” Tim’s voice is exasperated. “We’ve known since November. If that’s what you dragged us all the way--no, if that’s what you had _Martin_ drag us all the way over here to tell us, I honestly think we should be reimbursed for travel expenses.”

For a few seconds, Jon considers agreeing. Is that not basically what he’s done? Isn’t his plan to sit here and overshare wildly about his personal life until they’re forced to show him sympathy? Why can’t he just do anything _normally,_ do _normal_ things, like _not_ freezing friends out of career mobility, _not_ showing up to work drunk and trying to kiss his assistant, _not_ making a series of his own bad decisions and making it look like everyone needs to pay attention to him for it. If he’s had a bad few weeks, well, he should deal with it by himse--

Without speaking, Martin reaches out and gives Jon’s hand a squeeze.

The thoughts come to a halt. Like a lightning strike, Jon realizes that if he doesn’t start talking now, it won’t be long until he loses enough of his own trust that he can’t. He takes a deep breath.

“The first time Elias and I ever, um, the first time we were alone together after I started as Archivist was at the end of my first week. He’d never, or, actually, I’d never _noticed_ him showing any interest in me before, but he brought me up to his office after hours to talk, and after a little while he made it clear that he wanted, uh, well, _me_ , and.” His eyes heat up. “And I tried to tell him that I didn’t want to, but he just kept telling me that it was alright, that no one would hear, that no one was there, that everything was fine. I tried, I _tried_ to say that wasn’t why I didn’t want to, but… he didn’t listen. And the next time I saw him, I gave _reasons_ why we shouldn’t, trying _everything_ to make him understand, but he wouldn’t stop touching and grabbing and kissing me until I just realized it was easier if I let him and went with it.” A sob, restrained. “And that’s, uh, basically how it’s been.”

Sasha straightens up in her seat. “Oh my God.”

Martin’s hand had never left Jon’s, and he feels a thumb move gently over his skin. Softly, quietly, “Do you want to stop now?”

Jon just barely shakes his head.

“Wait, wait--” Tim lets out a nervous laugh, runs his tongue over his teeth, winces. “You’re--you’re saying that--he--are you sure?”

Sasha turns about to face him. “ _Tim._ ”

“Look, I know how that sounds, alright, but I’m not, that’s not what I’m trying to--” The self-assurance that Tim always wears has dropped all at once, his face twitching as he scrambles for anything else. He flicks his eyes back and forth between Jon and Sasha. “Okay, Jon, I think I’ve gotten some things wrong, and I’m sorry about that, you’ve clearly got, y’know, some stuff going on and I’m always a bit quick to jump to conclusions, but _that,_ it sounds, like, like a lot. I _know,_ I’m hearing how this sounds, but I don’t think Elias would be like that. You’re sure you aren’t, I don’t know, confused or something?”

Jon focuses on the feeling of Martin’s thumb brushing his knuckle. “I’ve been feeling fairly scrambled over the past months. Tired, irritable, guilty, whatever. Been drinking a lot, and, uh--” he takes his hand out of Martin’s for a second or two to push his sleeves up, exposing the array of scabs and blood-- “doing this. Not usually on purpose, but. Not good either way, really.

“I’ve gotten a lot worse over the past few weeks. Martin’s been helping--” hand squeeze “--but it’s gotten _bad,_ really out of control. And on, um, on Thursday.” Words catch is his throat like clothes on barbed wire, only able to get out if tears come with them. “It wasn’t a good day to begin with, my head wasn’t right and I did some stupid things. I mean, I think you all know. And I didn’t feel good, so Elias was bringing me home, and I was really out of it, so drunk I couldn't stand by myself, and he got me up against a wall, and I _tried_ to push him off but I was too weak. I, I kept saying, _pleading_ with him to stop, begging him to wait until we got back up here, but he just laughed and pulled my clothes off and. And did what he wanted to.”

Tim leans forward. “Jesus, Jon, I’m--”

“I’ve mainly spent the weekend since hiding away and drinking until I black out--this is actually the first time I’ve been sober since, I think, about lunchtime Wednesday?--and, then, yesterday, um.” Martin’s hand is warm, his skin a touch rough and calloused. “I tried to kill myself.” A few sharp intakes of breath in the room, but Jon bowls on. “Or, maybe that’s not the right way to say it, it’s not like I actually _did_ anything to myself, I just stood in front of my bathroom mirror for about twenty minutes with a bunch of pills in my hands, thinking about it. Wanting to.” He shakes his sleeve down again and wipes at his face with the cuff. “And then I panicked and called Martin.”

“What did you do with the pills? Did you get rid of them?” Sasha’s voice is soft.

Jon shakes his head. “No, I just sort of dropped them on the counter around the basin.”

“Tim, can you…?” She nods her head in the direction of the hallway.

Tim gets to his feet. “Yep.”

As Tim leaves the room, Martin stands from his seat and puts his arms around Jon. Jon clings back and drops his head onto Martin’s shoulder.

Sasha stands up, too. “Do you mind if I take some things from your kitchen?”

Jon turns out his face to look at her and shakes his head. She crosses over to the counter with the bank of drawers, going through them and taking out knives. He turns his face back in towards Martin’s neck.

“You did so well,” says Martin, holding him tight. “You told them, you did so well.”

Jon feels a well of warmth bleed out from his heart. They care. They _care. They care._


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon, Tim, and a much needed conversation.

Sasha shifts a few things around in the kitchen cabinet, trying to make everything fit. Paracetamol gathered up in a plastic bag, knives tied together in a rubber band, a few bottles of liquor, cleaning supplies, etc. _Yes_ , she thinks, managing to line up the Windex bottle Tim has just passed her. _There, all of it._ Once she gets a lock on it, that will be the flat safe, and that will be Jon safe, and that will be a main problem solved. She’ll have fixed something real and concrete, not made it worse.

She closes the cabinet, turns around, and sees Jon and Martin in much the same position they were half-an-hour ago, Martin holding him close and saying things that Sasha can’t hear. There, Martin’s working on the comforting and emotional aspects, she just needs to be practical. She takes her phone off the kitchen counter and opens up Google Maps.

“Okay,” she says aloud, slightly projecting her voice to get attention. “Jon, everything we’ve moved is in that cabinet. I’m about to go to the nearest Argos for a combination lock, so if you need something, ask one of us and we’ll open it.” She squints at her phone as it outlines a route and she takes a few steps to the door. “I should be back in just under an hour.”

Martin stands up fully, taking his hands off of Jon. “Actually, I was just going to go get a bag from my flat.”

“Oh, well that’s--” she stops. _Ah_. Discreetly, she looks back and forth between where Jon’s still sitting on the table and where Tim’s standing beside her. Neither looks particularly thrilled about the prospect of being left alone together for an hour, anxiety lining both of their faces. There is no way in hell she’s bringing Tim with her and leaving Jon on his own, and Jon doesn’t look nearly together enough to venture out with Martin. Maybe she could deputize Martin to run the errand for her? Or she can hold off on going out until he’s back? Or maybe she’ll ask what he was going to get from his flat and see if it’s anything she can get herself, or--

“Alright then,” says Tim. “See you in an hour.”

She gives him a meaningful look and hopes he understands that she’d rather not say “given your recent track record, I want you to think very carefully about whether you’re ready to go on Jon suicide watch duty” while Jon is in earshot. Instead, she says, “Yeah?”

Tim swallows. “Yeah.”

* * *

In his teens, Tim had briefly tried taking up babysitting. Being the older brother, he’d grown up being tasked with looking after Danny whenever his parents had needed to go out, so he’d figured it should be a breeze making the leap to looking after kids from other families. It wasn’t. Turns out, he’d only found it easy to hang out with Danny because they already knew each other and they could just carry on doing the same thing they were doing before their parents left the house. Children he’d never met before was an entirely different story. Teenage Tim who hadn’t yet quite worked out his social skills found it _hellish_ to sit alone in a room for hours with a kid he’d never seen in his life, trying and failing to start some sort of conversation or activity. He’d looked after a neighbor’s son maybe three times before throwing in the towel and deciding to get a job at the local library instead, unable to stand another minute alone with that child.

Sitting across from Jon on the sofa in the first few minutes after Sasha and Martin’s departure, Tim can’t help but be reminded of those long hours in purgatory.

He watches as Jon looks to be very interested in his own shaking hand.

“So…” Tim tests out. “Do you want to do anything?”

Jon sighs. “I’d like a drink.”

“Ah, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“It usually isn’t, but that’s never stopped me.” He starts to stand up but goes rigid when Tim grabs his wrist.

“Really mate, maybe don’t.”

“I…” He leans a bit to the side, gently testing the grip on him, but Tim doesn’t let go.

“Just, with what you said earlier…” Tim looks for an explanation that doesn’t sound _too_ condescending. “Sasha decided with us that you have to ask when you want something hazardous, so I think I’m not going to allow you right now.”

Jon looks down at his wrist, swallows, and sits down again. 

Tim takes back his hand.

“Sorry, I’ve felt just on the edge of a panic attack for hours.”

“Oh no.” No, he can’t just say “oh no” to that, Jesus. “Would it help if you… got it over with?”

Jon looks at him, face blank. “No, I would not like to induce a panic attack.”

“Right, yeah, ‘course.” A lull falls over the conversation again. Tim picks at his nail beds. This is as good a time as any. “Jon, um. If I can ask, why didn’t you tell us about all this earlier?”

“Hm?”

“It’s been, what, about six months? Of Elias doing this to you? And we all were _so_ wrong, and we treated you--well, you know. Why didn’t you say?”

Jon puts his hands in his hair. “I didn’t want to, I suppose. And, I know that this is stupid, but it was hard to figure out that something actually bad was happening to me. I never _liked_ it, but I kept feeling like I’d said yes, sort of reverse engineering that if I was in a situation then I must have put myself there. He certainly said so enough.”

“So what got you to tell Martin?”

Jon laughs, quiet and breathy. “Nothing, I didn’t mean to. I’d made a drunken mess of myself, as usual, and let something slip as he was trying to help me. And then he kept trying to help me, after that.”

“Ah.” Okay, less down to Tim than he’d thought.

“Actually, wait--” Jon starts, sitting up straight. “I did, I mean, I think I was going to try and tell you, once.”

“What?”

“Yeah, a few months ago. Do you remember that day when Sasha and Martin were out of the office, and I said something vague and unenlightening about asking for help?”

“No? I’m sure I--” All at once, Tim does remember. He knew he wasn’t doing _a good thing_ at the time, but he had figured that someone had to land at least one good reprimand on Jon, that the bastard couldn’t just get away with something as small as the silent treatment. He had been so angry, so sure of himself, that watching Jon’s face fall and tighten with clearly suppressed tears as he ranted had felt _good,_ like he was really slamming the point home. A wave of almost physically painful guilt and the knowledge that he may in fact be the worst man alive wash over him. “Oh my God, Jon, I’m _so_ sorry.”

“You didn’t know,” Jon says, shrugging. “And I wasn’t making it any easier, it’s not like I tried again. I just gave up, sank a bunch of vodka, and went back up to his office.”

Oh shit oh fuck. Just--oh _fuck._ _Gave up._ “And that was the last time you tried telling anybody?”

“First and last, yep. Like I said, I wasn’t persistent.”

Tim sets his jaw. “You should be angry with me.”

Jon blinks. “What?”

“I’ve been really out of line with you this whole time, you should be angry.”

“You didn’t know, what would be the point of being angry with you?”

“So you don’t end up thinking you deserved it!” Tim twists around and folds his legs up on the sofa to fully face Jon. “You know what you were saying about not being sure things were bad and convincing yourself that it _should_ be happening? Same thing here. That shouldn’t have happened, _I_ shouldn’t have done that, _none_ of it.”

“I--”

“When you were trying to ask for help and I blew up at you based on assumptions and gossip, how did you feel?”

“It doesn’t--”

“ _How did you feel?_ ”

“Small.” The word ejects itself out of his mouth. “Afraid. Angry at myself for making you upset. I wanted to hurt myself, or for someone else to do it.”

“And that is _fucked up._ You. Didn’t. Deserve. _Any_ of that. And what about last week, when I once more decided to shout-first-ask-questions-never, or, fucking, less than an hour ago, when you were trying _again_ to open up and get the help you _need_ and I had the audacity to actually say I didn’t believe you?”

“Yeah, that was--” Jon takes a second to breathe, trying to keep up with Tim’s energy and match his volume-- “that _hurt_. It was exactly what I was afraid of, that nothing was wrong and I was just falling apart by myself. I almost wanted to call it all off and send you all out right then. Why did you _say_ that?”

“For the same reason I did any of it: I was being self-absorbed and didn’t consider your perspective. I was suddenly facing the idea that I’d been getting things very wrong, looking for a way that could be not the case, and not stopping to think about how it would feel for you. And I’ve spent months angry at you, not even on _my_ behalf, because it felt good to be self-righteously furious and ‘punish’ who I thought was at fault, not even for a _second_ thinking that I could be wrong, that you could deserve better.”

“Yeah, that’s, that’s messed up!” Jon sits up on his knees, getting more into it.

“It is! You’re right! You’re right because I _wasn’t,_ and your perspective _does_ matter, _you_ matter, got that? Things that hurt you are bad because _you being hurt is bad._ ”

Jon scrunches and un-scrunches his face. “I hated the way you’ve been treating me.”

“ _Yeah!_ ”

“I already felt alone, and then I’d try and go to a place that was safe and there’d be no one there even willing to look at me!”

“ _Yeah!_ ”

“This whole time, I’ve been afraid that when I reached out to people that they’d say it was my fault and hate me, and then when I reached out to you, you said it was my fault and hated me!”

“ _Yeah!_ ”

“Do you, do you _know_ what that feels like? To feel so isolated and loathed and like no one cares what’s happening to you that it looks like your best option is, is just, to take it? To run away and go to the person who will at least let you _near_ them and hold you while they make you want to die?”

“No, I don’t! I haven’t a clue!”

“ _Fuck_ you!”

“Yes! There you go!”

“ _Fuck_ you, you’ve been awful! I shouldn’t have had to deal with that!”

“ _No!_ No, you should not have!”

A quiet falls across the room, and Jon’s chest heaves.

Tim waits until he’s sure there’s not going to be anything more added. “And how does that feel?” he asks at a moderate volume.

“Good, I think.” Jon keeps panting and chuckles. “Yes, good.”

“I’m glad.” He watches as Jon rests his face in his hands. “You okay?”

“Yes, yes, that was just--” more sounds of labored breaths, gradually getting more evened out-- “intense. The whole day’s--the whole _week’s_ \--it’s been generally intense.” He picks his head up and clears his throat. “I’d like to have a lay down, now.”

“Good, do that. Get some rest.” Jon stands up, but before he can take a step, Tim adds, “Keep your door open, though.”

Jon nods stiffly and shuffles down the hallway, Tim watching until he can see him flop down on top of the quilt.

* * *

tim: hey whoever's closest to a supermarket or something, can you pick up some ice cream

sasha: there's a sainsbury's just down the steet, I can do that

sasha: *street

sasha: any particular reason

tim: I feel like jon could use some ice cream is all

sasha: k, back soon


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some difficult discussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! apologies for the abrupt hiatus there, a few things coincided (needing to iron out the direction of the last few chapters before proceeding, suddenly getting busy at inconvenient times, brain no good bad terrible, etc.) at my end that resulted in me not posting for the last six weeks, but there shouldn't be any more gaps like that from here on out. thank you for sticking around!

Jon wakes up slowly from his shallow and fitful sleep to the feeling of someone lightly shaking his shoulder, bolting upright as soon as he recognizes the sensation and nearly breaking Sasha’s nose with his head.

“Whoops, sorry,” she says, taking a step back. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

His heart races. “It’s fine.” He shakes his head. “Uh, what do you want?”

She points to the foot of the bed. “May I sit?”

He nods, and she sits herself down on the mattress with a slight _creak,_ setting a packet of printouts on her lap.

“I’ve got a few things to go over with you.” She diverts her eyes down to the top page. “I stopped at a library on my way back and printed out some resources on rape and abuse recovery.”

He clenches his jaw and very carefully does not wince. “Ah.” He knew they had to be coming at some point, be hearing those words out loud without warning stuns him a bit.

She points to his shirt. “I take it you’ve showered and changed since Thursday.”

“What?” He looks down. “Oh, yes. Once. Why?”

“That will be a problem for a police report, but this website--” she shuffles through the papers and pulls one out-- “says that some evidence can still be collected within seven days, even after bathing. Did you wash your clothes after you took them off?”

The first thought he has is _Sometimes I wake up on the floor after having passed out and then don’t get up for two hours, so no on the laundry._ The second thought is, “ _Police report?_ ”

“Yes.” Sasha blinks. “Police report. I mean, I assume that you’d want to make one.”

“I, uh…”

“Here’s how it was explained in the video I watched,” she interjects before he can finish. She brings her finger to the paper to underline some text. “So you go to an SARC--a Sexual Assault Referral Centre, there are a few in London--so you go to one of those, and they take you for a forensic examination, test for STIs, give you some information about counselling, store whatever evidence they get, and then when you’re ready to go forward you call them or something and they arrange for a police officer with experience in this to come around and take a statement to start the whole proceeding.”

“F--forensic examination?”

“Mm hmm. The video said that they photograph any injuries and do swabs of anywhere you were touched, kissed, licked, bitten--” she turns her eyes to him, and for half a second, they turn to somewhere he’d rather they not-- “whatever. I’m not sure how it’s different if you’ve showered, but I’d guess they’ll still want to do that in case there’s anything that wasn’t washed off. Oh, your clothes, too, they’ll want to take samples from the clothes you were wearing.”

The sensation of phantom hands holding him down comes unbidden into his mind. His skin crawls and he squirms in place but tries to mask it. “I, uh, I really scrubbed my skin, I don’t think there’ll be anything left.”

Sasha considers. “Still better to have them check and come up with something, even something small, I think.”

It’s a little hard to speak, there’s not quite enough air. “All it’ll be able to prove is that I slept with someone everyone knows I’ve been sleeping with for months.”

She purses her lips. “I still think it’ll be easier to press charges if we have evidence of a specific time he assaulted you while you were drunk, and outside, and where you got suicidal afterwards.”

Another word he wasn’t actually quite ready to use just yet. He comes up dry looking for another excuse. “If you say so, then.”

She smiles. “Good. We’ll go later, but in the meantime I brought a few tubs of ice cream back with me, so let’s go open those.”

She gets up, Jon shakily follows, and they head out to the kitchenette again. Jon spies Martin back, standing just by the counter, and without a second thought he walks right over and buries his face in the crook of Martin’s neck. He feels arms wrap around him and hold him tight. He heaves a deep breath and tries to relax into the embrace.

“Hey,” says Martin, softly. “You okay?”

 _You’re really asking that?_ he doesn’t say. “Tense.”

A hand moves in a circle between his shoulder blades. “I’m sorry about that.”

Jon just pushes himself more into the soft jumper.

“How do you feel physically? Still nauseous?”

“A little bit.” He bites his tongue and takes a breath. _Not a lot of pride left to lose._ “Can I have a drink, please?”

“Are you thirsty?”

“No, I mean, uh. Alcohol.”

“Oh, Jon,” says Martin, voice so sweet with sympathy it turns Jon’s stomach. Martin’s hands move to his shoulders and push him back. “Is not drinking making you sick?”

“I…” A hot spike of self consciousness and shame lances through him. He rubs his face and wonders if it would be weird to pull the collar of his shirt up over his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, I just… don’t feel good. I’d like to relax.”

“Okay then, here you go, comfort food,” says Tim, who has evidently been standing just on the other side of the counter without Jon's notice. He slides across a bowl of ice cream. “No alcohol in it, though it _is_ called rum raisin.”

“Oh.” Jon fully breaks away from Martin and slips onto one of the chairs by the counter, tasting a spoonful. It’s good, run raisin has always been his favorite, but how would they know--

“You like that one, right?” says Sasha, sliding onto a stool across from him. “Martin said that’s the one you got at his birthday, but I couldn’t quite remember.”

Jon takes another bite. “I went to your birthday party, Martin?”

Martin takes a seat, and Tim directly follows suit. “It wasn’t so much a party, just the four of us in an ice cream parlor. It was, like, three weeks, or, maybe a month, after we all started working together?”

Jon stares, and Martin frowns.

“Can you really not remember?”

Jon twists his spoon between his fingers. “Was it right after work?”

“Yes.”

“And was I… odd?”

“I mean, you talked about emulsion for half-an-hour, but I’m not sure I’d call that _odd_.”

Jon inspects the pattern on the inside of his bowl. “I was probably a little bit drunk.”

“Ah.”

He doesn’t look up, but Jon can almost hear the three of them exchanging glances. 

“Later, maybe?” half-whispers Tim, clearly not talking to him.

“We’ve got time _now_ ,” replies Sasha. “Why wait to address it?”

“Hey, how about we just--” Martin turns to Jon-- “Are you up for talking about something?”

Jon shrugs. “What is it?”

“Your alcohol problem,” says Martin, with audible sensitivity.

“I…” There’s a buzzing in Jon’s skull. The sun’s still shining brightly outside and it’s already been a _long_ day. It’s hard to focus, but the cold of the bowl against his palm helps. “I think I can, yes.”

“Okay.” Martin turns to Sasha. “Do you have the…?”

“Oh, yes.” She gives him a sheet of paper, and he turns back to Jon, giving the paper a quick glance.

“I know I just asked, but try giving it a bit more thought: when you’re sober for more than a few hours, do you get sick?”

Jon tries to think about it, he really does. He stalls with another spoonful of ice cream. “What kind of sick?”

That doesn’t make Martin look pleased, and he checks the paper again. “Shakiness, insomnia, nausea, sweating, anxiety?”

“I--yes, I think. But not just when I’m sober. I don’t know.”

Martin scribbles something down. “Do you have to drink more than you used to to get the same effects?”

Again, Jon pushes, and he _tries_ to think about it, but it’s hard to force oneself to do something that’s entirely internal. “Maybe?”

“What do you mean by ‘maybe?’”

He feels like he’s trying to force a jammed gear. “I don’t know.”

“Come _on,_ Jon, try and get more specific,” urges Sasha.

 _Why is it so hard to talk?_ “I mean, I drink more than I did a few months ago, but I think I just want to. I don’t know.”

“Alright.” Martin glances at the paper. “Cravings? Do you get cravings strong enough that you can’t concentrate?”

Jon stares into the middle of the table. 

“Jon, is that what’s happening right now?”

“I _don’t know._ I, I mean I just _told you_ I want a drink, so.”

There’s a sound of paper being set down. Martin’s hand reaches out and squeezes Jon’s. “Try talking it through. How are you feeling?”

Jon swallows. “Anxious.”

“And when you want to drink, does it usually start with feeling anxious?”

“I… yes, I think. Anxiety, fear, stress.”

Sasha’s turn to scribble something. “So it’s more coping mechanism than physical compulsion.”

Jon shifts in his seat. “I guess.”

“We can stop soon,” assures Martin, smoothing his thumb over Jon’s wrist, “But what’s making you anxious just now?”

Jon glances quickly at Sasha and then back to the tabletop. “I don’t really like the idea of going out and being--” his free hand ghosts over his neck and chest-- “ _examined,_ or talking about this to someone I don’t know.”

He hears Tim and Sasha both breathe in like they’re going to respond, and he interjects before they can.

“Not that I can’t! I _can,_ I can, really, it’s just, it’ll be easier if I can drink a little bit, first, or I’ll probably end up being sick or having another panic attack or something. I won’t get insensible or anything, don’t worry! I just need to take the edge off.”

Four seconds pass. “Jon, I’m so sorry,” says Sasha, a hint of waver in her voice.

Jon tries to smile. “No, no, it’s fine, I didn’t mean it like--”

“We’re _not_ going.”

“No, I can--”

“No, _you can’t._ I’m not making you do something you can only think about doing intoxicated, I shouldn’t have put you in this situation.”

“You didn’t put me here, I didn’t say anything!”

“You did! You tried to give reasons why you shouldn’t and--” her face freezes for a few seconds and she slouches down, resting her head in her hand-- “and you _just_ said a few hours ago that you tried to make Elias stop the same way. You told us all of that, and then I ignored how uncomfortable you were because I decided I had the right idea. I should have noticed, I’m sorry.”

Jon sits there, speechless. He never would have made that connection himself, but of course that’s what it was. Why do other people keep being better at knowing his mind than he is?

There must be quite the expression on his face because Tim taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Hey,” he says, “Remember what we were just talking about? It’s good to speak up when you don’t like something, you don’t have to put up with anything you don’t want.”

Martin gives his hand another squeeze. “Yeah, what he said.”

Jon nods and he realizes that all the tension he’s been holding in his neck and jaw has unwound itself. “Thank you,” he says to the room at large.

Sasha straightens herself up and schools her expression. “So I assume you don’t want to pursue any legal action, at least not for a good long while.”

Jon gives it a few seconds of thought. “Yeah. That would be too much.”

“Okay then.” She takes her pen and makes a big X on her sheet of paper. “We can skip those steps, then. We don’t need to do anything else today.”

Jon takes a long breath then retrieves his hand from Martin’s grip to go back to his melting ice cream.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some plans for the near future.

It turns out, the main things Martin had left to go get from his flat were sleeping bags and tooth brushes. Jon does nearly start to cry as the three guests try to sort out sleeping arrangements; he’d been feeling a knot of anxiety build up under his ribs at the assumption that he’d soon be left alone with his thoughts again. Quick questions of whether he’d like someone to sleep on the floor by his bed are followed by quick denials followed by everyone laying down for the night. Jon slips into bed and feels… tired. Not _exhausted_ not _sick of everything_ not _faint and insensible,_ just tired. A bit worn out, maybe.

He lifts his head an inch or two to peer out his bedroom door, again propped open, and looks at the three figures sprawled around his sitting room. Martin and Sasha on either side of the coffee table, and Tim, as the shortest, taking the sofa. His eyes fall closed and his head hits the pillow again. He’s not looking forward to trying to sleep. Without any sedative, he’ll bolt up awake again within three hours, and that’s being optimistic. But he won’t have to lay here alone in the dark and try to talk himself down from it. There are people who know, people who _care,_ less than a room away.

He pulls his quilt over himself and tries to relax into slumber.

* * *

In the morning, Martin and Tim go off to do grocery shopping, Martin having decided that he’s going to make Jon a meal with more than three ingredients if it’s the last thing he does. Jon’s only awake by the most lenient of definitions as these conversations are happening, having indeed woken up a few times in the night, so things are a bit of a blur up until he finds himself sitting on the sofa next to Sasha with an empty tea mug cooling in his grip and the taste of strawberry jam and butter on his tongue. Sasha’s looking through a few _Inspector Morse_ DVDs that she must have found in the cupboard under the telly.

She catches his eye. “Bit more awake now?”

“Yes, thank you.” He shakes his head, trying to clear out the last vestiges of sleep, and bends to set the mug down on the floor. 

“Good.” She shuffles through a few of the DVDs and picks what Jon thinks is series two before she pauses, staring at it. “I’d like to talk through some things with you,” she says, not turning to him, “to figure out some next steps. Nothing binding or anything, just a few questions to figure out what you want. But you don’t have to. We can forget it and go straight to _Morse._ ”

Jon gnaws on his lip. “What sort of questions?”

“Not about anything that _has_ happened,” she rushes, putting down the discs to look at him, “Just, hypotheticals about what you want _to_ _have_ happen. And you can opt out any time.”

He plays it over in his head and slowly nods. “Alright then.”

“Good.” She pulls out a blank legal pad and a pencil from beside her that Jon hadn’t spotted before. “Is there anything that you want to start with?”

He tries to think for a second. “I have no clue.”

“Okay, let’s start simple. You don’t want to see Elias again, right?”

He quickly nods. “Right.” Just hearing the idea aloud makes it a little harder to breathe.

“Then do you want to do that by quitting, or by getting him removed?”

“I--wait.” The question and its implications wash over him, bringing with them a grey, grim realization that he ought to have come to before. “I have to quit, don’t I?”

“Not necessarily,” says Sasha, hitting all the consonants. “You could go to HR, file a complaint, tell them what happened. I don’t think the board will… want him…” she trails off as he pulls his legs up to his chest. “Jon, are you alright?”

“I can’t go to HR,” he says, ignoring her question. He feels a bit cold and drops his head onto his knees. “Same problem as the police. They’d make me spill my guts, there’d be no real evidence, and then they’d probably have to tell the police, anyway.” He sees something coming towards him out of the corner of his eye and flinches back.

Sasha retracts her arm. “Sorry, um. Your hand.”

“What?” He looks at where she’d been aiming and sees his fingernails starting to dig into the skin just under his elbow. “Oh.”

“Too much for the minute?” she says.

He takes a second to lace his fingers together in front of him, keeping them out of the way. “No, I can keep going.”

A beat. “I’m not going to say I don’t believe you, but didn’t we just talk about how you have a hard time opting out of things you don’t want?”

“No, I want to, to figure things out, I don’t want to just _stop_ and not know what’s going to happen.”

“But this is making you upset.”

“…yeah?”

Sasha falls silent for a minute. “What are things that make you feel better? Like, coping mechanisms wise, what helps?”

He gives a dry laugh. “Alcohol.”

“Okay, _besides_ that.”

He tries to actually consider it this time. When thinking about _feeling better,_ the first images that flash through his mind are of the one pair of hands that don’t make him feel sick to be touched by. Hands to hold his own, to wrap around him tightly, to carry him when he can’t walk, to make him food when he can’t do it himself. _Martin isn’t a coping mechanism,_ he thinks, dismissing the idea and moving on.

“Jon? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, just thinking.” He plays the last few weeks over in his mind. “I think, just, telling someone about how I’m feeling helps. Getting it outside my head, feeling less, I don’t know, alone with it.”

“That makes perfect sense.” She scribbles something down. “So, can you tell me what’s making you upset now?”

He squeezes his hands together. “Losing my job because of this, just, seems like a big thing.”

“Well, it is a big thing, and that’s fine.”

“But I’ve worked at the Institute since I got out of school, and I’m sure you know how hard it is to get a flat by yourself in London. If I quit, I’ll probably have to move, and God knows where I’ll go since I really don’t think I’m up for job hunting right now, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to live by myself right now, anyway. It feels like I’m walking headfirst into a car crusher.” He stops for a second and his eyes widen. “Christ, am I going to be homeless?”

“Don’t catastrophize, I’m sure your parents will let you move back in or something.”

“Orphan,” he enunciates slowly. “No other relatives either, not in Europe at least.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” He unentwines his fingers and pressed the balls of his hands into his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“I shouldn’t--” he catches himself-- “I _feel like_ I shouldn’t have told anyone. I feel like I shouldn’t have called Martin on Sunday. I feel like I should ask you all to pretend nothing’s happened and then go back in and beg Elias to let me stay.”

“Oh no. Well, uh, none of those are… correct impulses. Can I hug you?”

“No.” A beat. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s fine, always tell me if I’m overstepping,” she says, almost absentmindedly. “What about friends that might let you stay with them? Do you know anyone well enough?”

“I don’t think so, haven’t had much of a social life since uni.” He quickly pulls his hands away from his face and sucks in a breath. A face pops into his mind. “Wait. Maybe one person.”

“Great! Who?”

He sniffles and stands up, doing his best to look like he hasn’t just been upset. “One minute.” He’d dropped his mobile in the hallway on Friday, right? Right. He takes a few seconds to go grab it before coming back to the sofa. He lights up the screen and then instantly clicks it dark again, pulse suddenly hammering in his wrists. “Hey uh--” he holds the phone out to Sasha-- “can you do something for me?”

“Of course.” She takes it out of his offering hand. “What is it?”

“It’s stupid, but can you open up the text thread with Elias and then immediately close it without reading them, just to mark them as read?”

She nods. “That’ll be no problem.”

“Thank you. It just--”

“You don’t need to explain.” She clicks the phone on. “Passcode?”

“24601.”

She raises brow.

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t say it, I know.”

She smirkes. “Wasn’t going to say anything.”

Jon realizes he can see the reflection of the screen in her glasses, so he turns away until she’s finished.

“Done,” she says, handing back the phone. “Now, who’s this friend?”

“Someone I knew quite well in uni.” He finds the contact he’s looking for. “Can I have a minute to…?”

“Yes you can.” Sasha grabs his mug from the floor and stands up. “Fancy some more tea?”

“Yeah, I could go for some. Still a bit tired.”

“On it.”

She sets about putting the kettle on, and Jon opens up his old text thread with Georgina Barker.

* * *

11:22 p.m.; February 12, 2016. 

jon: hwllo georgie!

jon: what have you been dou g. Tlatelt?

jon: beend doing lately?

jon: been

georgie: hey there

georgie: same old same old. podcasting, cat bothering, etc.

jon: oh yeha right podcast i keep meaning to cstch uo but then i forgrt or dobt want to

georgie: that's alright, ghost stories aren't for everyone 

georgie: feeling alright there jon?

jon: yeah bit smashed is all

georgie: ah, drunk texting your ex, classic

georgie: what was it this time, lightweight sims? 2 ½ beers and now you need to have a lay down?

jon: eh half dizen shots 

georgie: wow so you really do need a lay down

jon: sorry i can go

georgie: no you don’t have to do that just yet

georgie: did you want to talk about anything in particular ir did you just get a bit lonely and want some conversation? hasn't been much except birthday messages since 2010

jon: had a qiestion yeah

georgie: ask away

jon: do yiu hate me?

georgie: no, of course I don't hate you, why would i do that?

georgie: what's brought this on?

jon: we havent spoken in like six years 

georgie: yeah, we broke up and took different paths, that happens. I don’t hate you for it

jon: msot peole do you can too if youwant

georgie: well I don't want to 

georgie: has something upset you? 

jon: no sorry i'm just drunk

georgie: okay well. I don't hate you, I'm sure plenty of people don't hate you.

georgie: is there anyone there with you?

jon: i’m at someones huose 

georgie: oh, got yourself a someone have you?

jon: sort of

georgie: well then that’s someone who doesn’t hate you. right now you should drink some water and go talk to them alright. can you go do that?

jon: yeah

jon: thank you

georgie: it's fine. check back in tomorrow morning?

jon: okay

* * *

Jon blinks at his phone. Evidently he did not get back to her the next morning, and if he were to guess why, he would say it likely had something to do with the fact that he has no memory of this conversation. Christ almighty. He feels some good old fashioned embarrassment heating his face, but he presses on to write a message anyway.

* * *

jon: Hi Georgie

jon: Sorry about all that, and for not responding. If it helps, I couldn't remember that conversation at all until just now. 

georgie: hey

georgie: its alright, I figured it was something like that, you did seem pretty wasted

georgie: are you doing okay?

jon: Could be better, to be honest. 

georgie: i'm sorry about that

jon: My apologies for this, but I have a fairly big favour to ask of you.

georgie: ask away

jon: I think it's something that's better explained in person. 

georgie: so quite serious then

jon: I'm afraid so.

georgie: I'm free at the weekend if you want to meet for coffee and catch up, there's a costa with fairly private seating near me

jon: I can do that.

georgie: good

georgie: saturaday at three? I'll send you the address later

jon: Yeah, that works.

georgie: see you then

* * *

Sasha places his mug on the coffee table and sits down with hers. “What’s happening?”

“I haven’t asked yet, it seemed like a strange thing to do over text message.”

“Sensible.” 

They each take a moment to sip their teas.

“So, you’re feeling better now?”

He takes stock. “Yes. Lots.”

“Talking it through worked?”

He nods.

A slurping sound. “That works out well, ‘coping mechanisms’ had been second on my bullet list of things to bring up.”

“Oh. Good, then.” _Sip sip sip._ “I think one is generally supposed to have more than one coping mechanism.”

“Are you up to thinking about it more?”

 _Sip._ “Yes. It’s easier now that I’m a bit--that I’ve calmed down a bit.”

“Okay, then by all means, what helps you when you’re feeling badly?” She picks up her pencil.

He’s already thought of one. “Honestly? Just going to sleep helps.”

“Don’t you have trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah, but I still feel better once I’ve woken up. Plus, nightmares can’t actually hurt me. I can.”

“Ah, I see the reasoning. Anything else?”

He takes a long sip to give him some time. Again, he thinks of Martin squeezing him close. “Blankets,” he says. “Feeling, sort of, protected.”

Sasha scratches down a few things.

“And--” he grits his teeth-- “attention. Just, attention.”

She smiles. “Nice.”

“I mean it.”

She jots it down. “I know.”

“And I think that’s it for now.”

“It’s a good short list, but if you’re still in the space to talk, there’s something else I’d like to ask.”

He really needs bigger mugs, this one is already nearly empty. “I am, but, I think it’ll be the last one.”

“That works out then, this is the only time sensitive one.” She clears her throat. “Please feel free to say ‘no’ if you think the answer’s ‘no,’ but do you think you’d be alright to stay here by yourself during the day tomorrow?”

He squints.

“Before you woke up, Martin, Tim, and I all had a conversation, and we realized we need to go into work tomorrow--”

“Oh. _Oh,_ of course you do--”

“--so we can hand in our notices.”

He blinks. “What?”

“We can probably figure out a way to get _you_ unemployed without going in, but it would be weird if we all just stopped turning up at once, so we thought we should get it over with and go in all together so none of us do anything rash.”

“You’re all _quitting?_ ‘ _Rash?’_ ”

“Of course we’re quitting.” She looks puzzled that he’d even ask. “I don’t think any of us want to work for _him_ anymore, I don’t think we even _could_. I certainly couldn’t.”

Jon feels like he’s listening to someone talk in a language he only just about speaks. “What do you mean you couldn’t?”

“I’d probably end up sabotaging everything, honestly. I can wreck computers pretty thoroughly, and I’m not known for my impulse control.”

“What--”

“And, to be _entirely_ honest, half the reason we’re all doing it at the same time is so Tim and I can be there to stop Martin getting himself done for GBH, he was _seething_ when we talked about it, it looked like he was genuinely ready to risk arrest. I mean, I sympathize, but that’s really the last thing any of us need.”

“Sasha, _what are you talking about?_ ”

She pauses. “Elias. None of us could make ourselves work for Elias anymore. Of course we can’t.”

It takes a moment to sink in. “You don’t have to leave your jobs on my account.”

“Frankly, I’ve been keeping my eye on opening academic posts for months, and Tim and Martin say they’ll try and get positions wherever I do, and Tim thinks that if push comes to shove he can weasel them both into jobs at his old publishing house. It’ll all work out.”

He feels a little twinge of guilt as he realizes _why_ she’s been looking for other jobs, but he buries it. This feels, sort of--good? Maybe? “That’s very good of you.”

“It’s not good of us, it’s the decent thing.”

“Oh.” He looks down at the ground for a moment. “To answer your question, yes, I think I’m alright for that.”

“Are you sure? It didn’t go well last time you were alone, and you said you it’s not a good idea for you to live alone at the moment. I really don’t want to put you in any sort of situation--”

“I’m sure,” he cuts in. “These last few days have helped. A lot. I won’t get that bad just in the 9-5 in the middle of the day you have to be out, and even if things do get a bit… _desperate,_ you’ve locked away everything fairly well. Do what you need to do, I’ll be fine.” He pauses, then adds, slightly dry, “And now that I’ve got that brand new list of coping mechanisms, all the bases are covered.”

Sasha smiles. “That’s good to hear. We’ll tell the boys when they get back.”

Jon nods, and drains his last sip of tea.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day home alone. What's the worst that could happen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for some more of jon's vicious internalized victim blaming and general terrible self-talk

They stay over again the next night, and Jon wonders if they intend to keep camping out in his sitting room until he finds somewhere else to live. He’s glad of it, of course, he can’t remember the last time he had three friends over (or even just three people he could call “friends” in general) and the physical reminder of their care is… lovely, but a little voice at the back of his mind is starting to pipe up. _They don’t trust you and they shouldn’t,_ it says. _They treat you like a child and they should._ He manages to ignore it fairly well, though. He knows it’s not _rational._ Muting that itch of a thought, he lays down to sleep around midnight.

At 1:17 a.m., he wakes up from a dream of being pinned to a wall in the open air but with no one around for miles. He closes his eyes and forcibly makes himself slow his breathing.

At 3:34 a.m., he wakes up from a dream of roaming the Institute halls, bleeding out, with everyone he approaches pushing him off before he can get two words in. He stares at his hands in the dim light of the street lamp outside his window and tells himself over and over that he’s home, that he’s safe, that it wasn’t real.

At 5:43 a.m., he wakes up from a dream of standing in his bathroom and spending hours taking pills out of their casings, never getting to the end of them. He thinks there was another person in the dream at some point, appearing briefly in the doorway with an expression of disdainful shock to tell him how _disappointed_ they were before leaving again. He can’t remember what happened after that.

He tries to get back to sleep to no avail, tension making his teeth grind and anxiety making his fingers shake. He could probably get by the next day on this much sleep and not do too badly, he’s had worse before. It’s not like he has anything to do tomorrow. He could lay here, eyes open and sore, heart fast and pounding, until one of the others comes to his bedside and he pretends to wake up. He could do that very easily.

Quietly, he slips out of bed and into the sitting room. Martin doesn’t snore, but when Jon kneels down next to him he can distinctly hear him breathing. His flannel pajamas are soft as Jon gently shakes his shoulder. Unobstructed by glasses, his earth-brown eyes are wide and receptive as Jon tries to be clear enough for comprehension despite whispering for Tim and Sasha’s benefit and stammering from his own nerves. His embrace is as solid as ever as he pulls Jon’s shaking body close.

“ _You’re alright, you’re alright,_ ” he murmurs.

Jon nods into his shoulder.

* * *

He manages about another hour-and-a-half of sleep after that before getting led groggily to the sitting room to eat some breakfast around 7:45. He nods and tries to seem attentive as they give him some last advice and assurance, but honestly his brain’s still half asleep and he’s not fully conscious until he hears the front door click shut and he finds himself once again alone in his flat. He doesn’t think they nabbed his key, so after he puts his dishes in the sink he locks the door behind them. The _chk_ of the bolt sliding into the door almost seems to echo, but that’s ridiculous.

The clock in his room reads 8:07. They shouldn’t be getting back any later than six. He’s lived alone for years, and this is ten hours at a maximum. It’ll be easy. He can do this.

* * *

God, it must be awful having to take the Tube and go into work in the clothes they’ve been wearing for the last three days, and four days for Martin. It was good of them to stay with him for so long, and he does appreciate it, sincerely, but really he should have at least _suggested_ that they spend last night in their homes, even if just to shower. He didn’t want them to feel like they _had_ to stay, as if he were some sort of _jailer._ _You didn’t ask them to stay with you,_ he reminds himself, _they did that on their own._

Just before nine, Jon puts on a CD that his grandmother had given him when he went off to university, a recording of all four of Brahms’s symphonies. He’d used it to focus and power through many an essay and assigned reading, and he hopes the music will help fill space in the empty flat.

* * *

He can’t help but worry about them a little bit. Three people are consciously and deliberately all but killing their careers just because of him, he’s got an obligation to worry about them. It may not be exactly his _fault_ , but just, objectively, they would not be having to do this if it weren’t for him. If he hadn’t gotten into this situation in the first place, or if he had dealt with it himself, they could carry on as they were just fine and they wouldn’t feel their _employment_ was so tied to him.

He reminds himself that he didn’t ask them to quit and they came to that idea on their own. Sasha said it was as much for their benefit as his. They don’t want him to feel badly about it.

He pulls the duvet off his bed, wraps himself up in it on the sofa, and tries to read, the orchestral music ever present in the background.

* * *

Well, the thing is, Sasha had just seemed so _uncomfortable_ during their whole talk, anyone would be if his reaction to them trying to have a conversation was to work himself half-way to sobbing almost instantly, of course she told him she was fine about quitting. That doesn’t _necessarily_ mean she was lying, obviously, it just means that she easily could have been. She certainly hadn’t been very happy last time he’d had influence over her career path.

He pulls the duvet over his head and presses his hands around his ears. _He_ didn’t do that, he didn’t put her in that position, it was _all_ misunderstandings. He’s alright, _he’s alright,_ it’s not his fault.

The third symphony plays softly. He should probably try and get some more sleep, but he feels too wired for it.

* * *

Okay, okay, even if it isn’t _his_ _fault,_ it’s still awful and unfair that all of them have been put in this situation. He hasn’t somehow deliberately and supernaturally bound them to him, but it’s still awful and unfair that they feel like they have to quit. It’s still awful and unfair that they feel like they have to spend all this time looking after him. It’s still awful and unfair that Sasha got stressed out from just trying to bring up some basic points with him. It’s still awful and unfair that Tim felt guilty for getting the wrong end of the stick when it wasn’t like Jon had really _tried_ to clear it up before. It’s still awful and unfair that Martin’s had to be so worried about him for the last two weeks, and that Jon had made him promise not to confide in anyone. Sasha had said he’d been _angry,_ and Martin’s never seemed like an angry person. Anger’s hardly a pleasant emotion, and Jon’s sorry that he’s influenced Martin enough to push him into that kind of fury.

The flat is suddenly silent as the fourth symphony comes to its conclusion.

* * *

Really, okay, _really,_ he should have dealt with this on his own. Sure, maybe he didn’t “deserve” it, maybe the whole affair has been hurting him “the most,” but if he really cared about doing the decent thing and not dragging people down with him then he wouldn’t have made the rest of them get involved. He should have kept his mouth shut to Martin, he should have quit quietly, he should text Georgie and cancel their plans, he should try and call the three of them before they hand in their notices and tell them to forget everything, he shouldn’t have called Martin on Sunday, he should have just looked up the number for the Samaritans or something if he had to bother anyone about his stupid little crisis, but really he should have just been able to handle it alone, he should have been able to talk himself out of it, or maybe, really, when you get down to it, he should have just _let himself--_

He laces his fingers together in front of his face and squeezes tight. “ _No,_ ” he whispers out loud. “Stop that.”

He’s spiraling. He’s spiraling _badly,_ but at least he caught it. He doesn’t _want_ to keep doing this, he wants to get better, that’s what all of the last few days has been about.

He gets up from where he’d been on the sofa, goes to sit by where he’d left his phone on the kitchen table, and opens up the pre-installed voice recorder app. There’s no one around to talk this through with, so he figures this is the best replacement. He hits record.

“Uh, audio diary of Jonathan Sims, I guess, recorded--” he clears his throat, tries to stop his voice wavering quite so much, and looks at the time and date on the screen-- “at roughly 12:30 p.m. on the fourth of May, 2016. Christ, I’d had plans to do audio files of some of our old documents, guess this is the closest I’ll ever get to that, y’know, monologuing into a recorder. Recording… begins? So--”

 _Knock knock_ comes a sound from the front door.

He startles a bit in his seat before letting out a relieved sigh. “Nevermind, actually. They must have only gone in for a half day.”

Crisis averted, or, shortened, at least. He’s not proud that four-and-a-half hours was just about too much, but he’s glad to have them back anyway. Not even stopping the recording, he slips off his stool, dashes to the door, unlocks it, and pulls it open.

Looking up from where he’d been leaning against the doorframe and staring vaguely at the ground, Elias’s face forms a relieved half-smile. “Oh, Jon, there you are, thank God.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> expanded warnings in end notes

His lungs can’t get enough air. He tries to breathe and they just don’t take enough, like they’ve suddenly shrunk. “Wh--what are you doing here?”

Elias steps forward, his eyes soft, and comes about halfway through the door, extending a hand to gently cup Jon’s jaw. “You haven’t been answering your phone. I’m worried about you.”

Centimeter by centimeter, Jon isn’t that much shorter than Elias, but now he is very, very small. He can’t make words come out, there’s simply not enough air in his body.

Elias takes another step. “I haven’t heard a word from you in nearly a week, I wondered--look, I’ve tried not to bring it up, and maybe that’s on me, but you’ve been falling apart recently. I’m concerned about your mental health. Last time we spoke, you implied to me that you were feeling--” he glances over his shoulder, as if to check there’s no one to overhear in the corridor behind him, and then drops his voice-- “ _suicidal,_ so you can imagine why I found it troubling when you dropped off the map like that.”

“Last time we spoke…” Jon’s thoughts aren’t coming together right. Nothing’s making sense. “You, you--”

Elias looks over his shoulder again. “I think this is a conversation better had in private.” He lowers his hand to Jon’s chest and pushes him backwards, stepping all the way into the flat and closing the door behind him.

Jon’s feet shuffle back without him realizing, bringing him towards the kitchen table. A swallow. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me again,” he makes his mouth say.

To match the steps Jon’s taken, Elias comes in yet closer. “Don’t say that, of course I want to see you, why wouldn’t I want to see you?” Again, he puts his hand on Jon’s face, angling his jaw up to meet his eyes.

 _Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry._ “You seemed, last time we saw each other, I thought you were… angry with me.”

“No, no of course not, dear.” He puts his other hand on Jon’s shoulder, all but pinning him in place. “I’d never be so angry with you that I’d stop seeing you with no warning. What made you think that?”

“You… you…” He can’t just _say it._ He just, it’s, it feels, it’s so, there’s very, _he can’t--_

“Love? Love, you’re trembling.” Elias is right in his ear and he can’t breathe and he can’t move and everything is happening faster than should be possible. “Come on sweet thing, let’s get you sitting down.” In a single movement, Elias lifts Jon by the waist and sits him on one of the stools around the table.

Reflexively, sounds start tumbling from Jon’s lips as shakes rock through him from his heart outwards. “ _I’m_ _sorrysorrysorrysorry_ _I’llgetittogether_ _I’llgetittogether._ ”

“Jon, you need to calm down.” Elias crouches slightly to get on eye level and puts a hand on Jon’s chest again, keeping it there. “Deep breaths, we don’t want you to faint.”

Jon’s hands find their way to Elias’s wrist and grip tight. He’s shaking so hard and everything’s so off balance that he’s certain he’ll fall off the stool if he doesn’t hold on to something.

“Breathe, breathe, breathe… there, good.” Elias kisses his cheek and Jon’s body goes completely rigid. “God, Jon, whatever it is you’re remembering happening that’s making you so upset, I’m sorry about it, but, you were, what? Nine drinks in, maybe more? I’m not saying I think you’re trying to make anything up, but I think you may be misremembering or distorting something.”

Jon manages to gasp a full lung of air. “What?”

He smooths his thumb over where it rests on Jon’s chest, his face and tone so measured and gentle that it makes Jon feel ill. “I can’t remember anything happening that would provoke such a reaction from you. You’re clearly quite distressed, and I’m sorry, but I think it’s your mind playing tricks on you.”

“No, that, that doesn’t make sense.” Or does it? What wouldn’t make sense would be for someone to… assault him like that and then turn up a week later and help him down from a panic attack. It wouldn’t make sense for someone to be so _violent_ and then act as if it hadn’t happened, there would be no reason for someone to do that except to, what? Be caricaturishly awful? He’s been discovering more and more that he gets blackouts sometimes when he drinks, it’s not impossible that he could have gotten confused. Maybe they just had normal sex and he’s been having a week long breakdown over a false memory that he made up while under stress. 

“It won’t make sense to you if you feel like your memories are accurate, but it makes sense to me, and I wasn’t the one who couldn’t stand up unassisted.”

He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry,” he says weakly.

“It’s okay, love.” Another kiss on the cheek.

“I, I haven’t been doing well.”

“I can see that.”

His head hurts. “You’re right, I have been suicidal. A few days ago, um, I.” He takes his hands back and pulls them around himself. His eyes are hot behind their lids. “I tried to, y’know. Do it.”

“Oh Christ, Jon, you poor thing.” A body pressed into his and squeezing hard around him. God, he wants a drink so badly. “How about you come stay over at my house for the next few days, okay? Then we’ll figure out what to do with you.”

He shrugs. “Okay.”

Elias kisses his neck, and Jon can sense that desperate, destructive feeling trickling into his mind, that need for the smallest bit of affection and control coming together with enough scathing guilt and self-disgust to make Elias look like the best option. He’s such a mess of a person, he keeps getting everything wrong, doing _everything_ wrong, Elias is doing him a real favor to be so courteous with him all the time.

_(“He said that to be horrible and make you feel worthless.”)_

The kisses inch further up his neck to his jaw. His hands curl up into fists as nausea claws at his throat. Maybe this is what happened Thursday, maybe he felt badly enough about what was happening that he imagined he said so and put up a struggle, but in the moment he just took it. Yes, he’s often frozen up and started babbling reasons to leave when Elias has started up like this, but Jon can’t expect him to read into all that. Unless he only gives a straight _no_ every time he’s asked, he has no room to feel like there’s been any mistreatment.

_(“...I ignored how uncomfortable you were because I decided I had the right idea. I should have noticed, I’m sorry.”)_

The arms unwrap from around him and start feeling him up. Drawing up his shirt, playing over his chest, rubbing his thigh. He’s lifted up from the stool dropped onto the counter with a jolt. He can probably live with this. He’ll probably be okay with this. If he can keep ahold of himself and stop being so _stupid_ then he’ll probably survive this. This can happen, it’s fine.

_(“…your perspective does matter, you matter, got that? Things that hurt you are bad because you being hurt is bad.”)_

Elias’s fingers toy at the hem of his trousers. “Lay back,” he says by Jon’s ear.

Jon opens his eyes and grabs Elias’s wrists. “No, wait, stop.”

Elias shakes him off. “Lay back.”

“I don’t want to do this, Elias.”

“You’ve locked yourself away all sad and lonely for a week, let me kiss you better.”

“Elias, I’ve just finished having a panic attack.”

“And you’re cute when you’re all weak and vulnerable like this. Lay back.” He starts kissing Jon’s face again. Up his jaw, across his cheek, at the corner of his mouth. Elias’s tongue slips into Jon’s mouth at the same time as his hand slips into Jon’s trousers, starting to pull them down, and. Well. Jon comes to a decision. Jon comes to a decision and he _bites down._

“ _Ahh!_ ” Elias yelps and jumps back. “ _Ow_ , Jesus,” he spits, a touch of scarlet at the parting of his lips. “What the _hell,_ Jon?”

Adrenaline races through Jon’s veins. “I told you to stop.”

He takes a step back in. “You _little--_ ”

Jon slaps him across the face with the back of his hand before he can finish that sentence, and even mostly manages to cover the wince from his knuckles hitting cheekbone. “Stay. Back.”

Elias, half bent over and holding his hands to his cheek, groans in exasperation. “You know what? You’re really getting to be more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Good.”

“You’re _fired._ ”

“I quit.”

“For Christ’s sake,” he pulls his hands away from his face and straightens up a bit, “I come here to try and make nice and you _bite me?_ I shouldn’t bother.”

“Then don’t.” Jon takes a real, full breath, then freezes. “Wait, ‘make nice?’ So you _do_ remember?”

Elias groans again and rolls his eyes. “Of course I fucking remember, I’m not an idiot.”

“Then why did you--”

“‘Cause when I left you on Thursday, I figured you’d either top yourself or just come back like usual.” He sounds like he’s having to explain why two plus equals four for the sixth time in a row. “When you didn’t answer any of my messages, I started to wonder whether I may have gone too far, and when none of your department came in for two days, I decided to wait to see if they came back and then come try and make up with you if you were still breathing. Turns out, I shouldn’t have, you insolent little brat.” 

Jon doesn’t really know what to do with this information, but Elias is wearing an expression of grimacing annoyance and looks like he wants to continue with the insults. Jon swallows. “Get out of my flat?” he says, a touch unsure.

“Don’t have to tell me twice, my tongue’s swelling up, Jesus.” He touches his hand to his mouth to dab away some of the blood and heads towards the door. “Good fucking riddance.”

Elias slams the door behind him, and Jon gets down off the table. He feels a bit light headed and plants his forearms firmly on the smooth countertop. Oh _God_ that really all just happened. He looks down at his hands, sees them trembling, and wills himself not to dive into panic again. He’s exhausted, like he’s spent the last three hours swimming nonstop. There’s a storm of tears in his throat and behind his eyes, waiting for him to let it have a bit of give. 

The lock on the cabinet is hardly impenetrable. He’s sure he’s got a screwdriver or something around that would be strong enough to break it off, or there might even be a tutorial online for how to pick it. He doesn’t want to _hurt himself,_ of course, he. He’s just thinking about the unopened bottle of brandy sitting in there. It would be very easy, all things considered. He could go to the junk drawer right now, start testing things on the lock, and by 2 p.m. be out of his mind and not even care about how close he’d come to keeping his eyes closed and just letting that happen to him. He pictures it. He pictures moving away from the table and getting started.

Instead, he leans over to where his phone’s been lying on the corner of the table and unlocks the screen. “You get all that?” The app just counts up further seconds of recorded audio in response. “Right. Uh, end recording.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for (and please let me know if anything should be added):
> 
> \- panic attacks  
> \- further emotional abuse, this time more of the gaslighting variety  
> \- sexual violence  
> \- garden variety violence violence and some blood  
> \- not quite sure the term for this one but some adverse discussion of mental illness, specifically suicidality
> 
> \----
> 
> this is tentatively the penultimate chapter, but that may change depending on how long the last scenes I have planned turn out. thank you all for sticking around!


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A recording, an email, a coffee shop, a finale.

At her desk, Sasha hangs up the office phone. “Rosie says he’s still not back.”

“Does she not have any clue _when_ he might be back? Or where he went?” says Tim, sitting sideways in his chair.

“No, but she said he told her to cancel anything he had lined up for the afternoon, so I’m guessing he wasn’t planning on returning any time soon.”

Tim pushes himself off his desk and makes his chair do a slow spin. “Ugh, who decided we should hand in our notices on our lunch break?”

“That was you, Tim.”

“One of my worst ideas, I think.”

“Maybe so.” Sasha takes a deep sigh. “What do you both reckon? Should we come back tomorrow and see if he’s in then?”

From leaning against the wall across the room, Martin says, “If he disappeared so suddenly then he might be busy for a few days. We’d have more luck going to his house.”

Sasha turns to him. “Martin, the day you can show me a clear plan for how to get away with murder in the most surveiled city in the world is the day we go to Elias’s house.”

Martin opens his mouth to respond, but before he gets the chance, his phone starts ringing. He gives a quick apology nod, takes it out of his pocket, squints at the screen, and puts it to his ear. “Hello? Jon?” A beat, and he stands straight up. “ _What?_ Are you alright? Did he do--did he hurt you?”

Tim and Sasha freeze in place and give him their full attention.

Martin nods into the receiver. "Yeah, yeah of course, as soon as we can. Do you want me to stay on the phone until then?” Pause, pause. “Alright, just try and keep yourself occupied. Be there soon.” He hangs up the phone.

“What’s--” Sasha starts.

“Elias showed up at his flat,” says Martin before she can finish. “He says things are basically okay, but he wants us to come back. Let’s go.”

Within about ten seconds, everyone grabs their bags and coats and is out the door.

* * *

Jon knows he’s being a bit selfish, he knows they all want him to say what happened, but explaining is _so_ exhausting and sitting on the sofa not doing anything with his eyes closed and Martin’s arms wrapped around him is _so_ relaxing. In all honesty, he’s not _that_ shaken up, he could make himself get it over and done with fairly painlessly, but he thinks he’s entitled to a little bit of self-indulgence.

After some amount of time, he extricates himself from Martin’s warm embrace and leans over to where he’d left his phone on the coffee table.

“I started this just before he arrived,” he murmurs, and hits _play_ on a file containing about seventeen minutes of audio. 

Martin takes hold of one of Jon’s hands as Jon’s own voice starts playing, though the grip gets a bit tight as soon as Elias’s voice starts. Tim’s face is steely, Martin’s barely concealed rage, and Sasha’s attentive.

At the first muffled sounds of kisses, Jon grabs the phone, hits pause, and keeps fiddling with the controls. He can see the rest of them turn towards him out of the corner of his eye.

Martin’s free hand comes to rest on his upper arm. “Jon, I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

“No, uh, that’s not--” he knows how this looks at present and that they’re assuming he’s stopping the audio fully and what that would imply, but that’s not it, he just doesn’t want to have to listen to the next few minutes of the recording-- “it doesn’t get that far, I’m just trying to get to--” he gets to the right time and puts the phone back on the table “--here.”

The audio starts up again. _“And you’re cute when you’re all weak and vulnerable like this. Lay back.”_

“There’s about to be a loud sound,” warns Jon, and the recorded Elias shrieks seconds later.

Shouts and tirades play out for the room, and Sasha’s eyes widen, her expression of focused worry shifting into the shock of realization. She catches Jon’s gaze, and he nods. When it ends, she’s the first one to speak. “Did you do that on purpose?”

Jon shrugs, a little bit pleased. “Not at the beginning, but I was trying to lead him a bit there at the end.”

“What?” says Tim.

Martin sucks in a breath. “ _Oh._ ”

Tim looks between the three of them. “What? What are you all thinking?”

Sasha stares at the phone. “That’s not just a recorded assault but--” she begins.

“--a recorded confession,” finishes Martin.

“Oh.” Tim blinks a few times. “ _Oh_ , oh _right._ ”

A smile pulls at the edges of Jon’s lips. “Evidence.”

* * *

from: Sasha James <sjames@magnusinstitute.org.uk>

to: Elias Bouchard <ebouchard@magnusinstitute.org.uk>

CC: Martin Blackwood <mblackwood@magnusinstitute.org.uk>; Jonathan Sims <jsims@magnusinstitute.org.uk>; Timothy Stoker <tstoker@magnusinstitute.org.uk>

date: May 6, 2016

subject: An audio recording featuring yourself

<1 attachment (17.8 MB)>

Dear Mr. Bouchard,

I am writing to you today on behalf of the entire Archival department with some information and a few requests. Attached you will find an audio file recorded this past Wednesday featuring you and former Magnus Institute employee Jonathan Sims to which I think it may be in your best interest to listen. We have this file backed up on several cloud services and physical hard drives and are prepared to share it with parties that include but are not limited to:

  * any and all Magnus Institute employees
  * any and all Magnus Institute board members
  * any and all journalists whose contact information we can find
  * the London Metropolitan Police 



I would imagine you would prefer us not to do any of the above, though I cannot guarantee that we won’t do any of the above. To be quite honest with you, Mr. Bouchard, the only reason we haven’t yet done any of the above is that it would cause significant disruption and distress to the other party featured in the recording, and while we all would very much like to not disturb his well being more than it already has been, I’m sure that if he were given a strong enough cause and/or felt a satisfactory amount of personal security, then Mr. Sims would consent to this audio file being shared. However, I can say that if there were three things you could do that would be likely to make us at least delay sharing it, they would be:

  * immediately resigning your post as Institute Head
  * never again seeking a position of power similar to your post as Institute Head
  * never again coming into contact or close proximity with Jonathan Sims



I recognise that this may come as somewhat of a shock, so I’ll grant you until Monday to think it over, at which point I expect to hear back from you with a decision. And, while we’re here, Martin Blackwood, Tim Stoker, and I, all wish to resign, and will be handing in our official letters as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Sasha James, Archival Assistant

* * *

“How are you feeling?” asks Martin, standing with Jon outside the Costa.

Jon almost gets annoyed at the question. He’s just going in to have a conversation with an old friend. Yes, he’s a bit nervous, but he knows Georgie well enough not to be _that_ nervous. Then he realizes Martin’s probably asking in reference to the mild panic that he’d fallen into when he’d tried to leave the flat by himself which had necessitated Martin coming along with him, and he decides it may actually be a reasonable thing to ask. He considers it. “Okay enough. Bit tense, but it should be easier once I’m sitting down and talking with her.”

“Good.” Martin gives one of his shoulders a squeeze and looks in through the cafe window. “I’ll get a seat by myself somewhere and wait for you, yeah?”

Jon nods as they open the door and step inside. “Yeah.”

Martin heads for a back corner with a few empty chairs, and Jon casts his eyes around before spotting Georgie over in a window seat somewhat separated from the other tables. A second later, she spots him, smiles, and waves him over.

He slips into the chair across from her. “Hi Georgie,” he says, a little bit stiff. “How are you?”

“Oh, y’know. Alright.” She slides a small plate from her side of the table to his. “I got you a brownie.”

He smiles and picks it up. “Much appreciated,” he says, before taking a bite.

She squints at his hands as he puts the confection back on the plate and leans a bit to the side to get a full look at him. “Aren’t you a bit warm in that?”

He glances down at himself. “Now that you mention it, yes.” Standing at his wardrobe that morning, he’d gone a bit mad with the realization that there was nothing actually stopping him from wearing the mid-calf length dress and wool tights that he hadn’t touched all winter and he threw them on without thinking. Not exactly ideal clothing for May. “Looks good, though.”

“That is fair enough, I know I’ve worn enough crop tops in November for the same reason.”

He laughs. “And I seem to recall you get chilblains almost yearly.”

“Hey, you know what my circulation is like, I’d get them crop tops or not. I just choose to make my life worse by bringing down my general body temperature to match my hands.”

“As is your right.” Another bite of brownie. “How’s The Admiral these days?”

Her phone is in her hand in the time it takes Jon to blink. “You’ve stepped right into my trap.”

“How unfortunate,” he mumbles as she pulls up a few pictures of a fat and fluffy brown tabby cat asleep in various places around her house. He studies them closely. “He looks to be doing well.”

“I spent about ten minutes trying to get him out of my recording studio the other day,” she says. She looks away from her phone screen and over to him. “What about you? How’s that promotion that was all over your Facebook last October?”

“Uhh.” Right. As much as he’d like to just have one normal conversation, he came here to do something. “I am now unemployed.”

She sits up in her chair and puts her phone away. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“That’s actually part of what I want to talk to you about.”

“I see.” She claps her hands together in front of her on the tabletop, businesslike. “Go on, I’m all ears.”

He’d thought about how to say this before coming, so he’s got a few lines prepared. _Deep breath, this is fine._ “The short version is that I lost my job and won’t be able to get another one for some time. The slightly longer version is that it was a really bad environment that I’ve had a lot of health, well, _mental_ health problems as a result of, and I’m going to need a fair amount of time to recover, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get another job until I’m functioning better. The full version is a lot grimmer and more intense and I don’t want to go into all of that with you yet, but nothing I’ve said so far is inaccurate.”

“I see,” says Georgie. She’s never been one for grand emotional displays, that was one of the first things he’d noticed they had in common when they met (though he supposes he’s gotten more emotional of late), but her brows are drawn down into something sympathetic. “Then I’m glad you got out if it was that bad.”

“Thank you.”

“And what’s the favor you wanted to ask me about?”

Before starting again, he reminds himself that the worst thing that can happen is she says no and he carefully doesn’t think about all the consequences that potential “no” would have. “I’m not going to be able to keep paying rent on my current place and I don’t do well with extended periods of time alone and I believe you have a spare room.”

“Ah.”

“And like I said, it’s not like I’m going to be able to pay you anything, at least not for a good long while, and I’m not very useful at the moment, and I’m sure it’s the last thing you need, but--”

“Sure.”

Jon blinks. “What?”

“Yeah, you can stay with me. That is what you’re asking, right? You’re sort of talking around it.”

“Yes, that is what I’m ask--really, just like that?”

She shrugs. “You’ve been through some kind of ordeal and need somewhere, I have a bored cat and a bed going free. Easy.” She speaks like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“You’re serious?”

“Yes, Jon, I am being serious. When do you want to move in?”

“Thank, uh, thank you so much.” He laughs, almost giddy. “End of the month? I don’t have that much stuff, so the moving process should be fairly easy.”

“Cool, we can make arrangements and sort details later. It’ll be nice having you about again, it’s been a long time since I’ve had someone around to correct documentaries in real time.”

“Come on, be fair. I haven’t done that since I was a teenager.”

“Yes you have.”

“Yes I have.” The euphoria of having gotten through a difficult conversation unscathed flows through him, and he has some more of the brownie.

Georgie’s eyes zero in on his right hand as he brings the brownie to his lips and she jolts in place. “Oh! That’s what it is!”

“What?” he says around a full mouth.

“Your ring! I knew something was off about your hands, and I couldn’t place it, but it’s your ring! You’re not wearing it.”

“My… oh.” He holds his right hand out front of his face. “Yes.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you without it since, what? 2008? Did you lose it?”

It hadn’t felt right to wear it when he was with Elias. He’d never pinpointed why, and he hadn’t wanted to think too much about it, so one day he’d just. Left it at home. He has no clue where it’s ended up now, it could be anywhere in London for all he knows. “Something like that.”

“Well that won’t do.” She starts rummaging around in her handbag handing off the back of her chair.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah, here it is!” She triumphantly holds up a black marker. “Give me your hand.”

He considers protesting before realizing he doesn’t actually want to protest, and he puts his right hand in her waiting left.

“This is a Sharpie, so it’s basically a tattoo.” She takes a few seconds to draw a loop around the base of his middle finger, going over it a few times to make sure it stands out. “There you go.”

She releases his wrist and he inspects his new and improved hand. He likes it. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem.” Her eyes travel from his hand to his face. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Yes, sorry.” He wipes at his eye with the cuff of his sleeve. “Just been crying a lot recently, this is barely anything compared to what I’ve usually been doing.”

“Ah, right. Are you by any chance in contact with a therapist?”

Her tone is light but Jon can tell she’s genuine. “It’s on the do-list, I’ve had a lot on.”

“Understandable.”

He has the last bite of his brownie and does his best to will himself to stop tearing up. “Thank you so much, again. For everything.”

“You’re welcome. Whatever it is that happened, I hope you start getting over it as quickly as you can.”

“I’ll try to.” He takes a deep breath. “A friend came here with me, I don’t want to keep him waiting too long.”

“Oh, okay then. I’ll call or text you or something tomorrow so we can figure out dates and plans and all of that.”

“I’ll remember to keep my phone on.” He stands from the table. “It’s been good seeing you, Georgie.”

“It’s been good seeing you, Jon. I look forward to taking embarrassing pictures of you when you fall asleep like a cat in strange places and positions.”

He laughs. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Talk to you tomorrow.”

He finds Martin playing a game on his phone in the corner, and they’re out the door in seconds.

“How’d it go?” asks Martin when they’re out in the open air.

“Well! It went really well, she agreed to let me stay with her.”

Martin beams. “Fantastic!”

Jon focuses on him instead of the busy street around them. It’s loud and busy and unknown, but he’s got a friend with him, a friend where he’s just been, and friends waiting at home. Things may be dangerous, but they can only be so bad when there are people around to help. “Yeah. Everything’s gonna be alright, I think. I think it might be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! thank you so much for reading this far, it has been an absolute pleasure to share this with you all. I've been writing fic off-and-on for about six years, and I've never managed to complete something like this, and I can say with certainty that I wouldn't have had the drive to finish this if it weren't for all the lovely things you all would comment with every update, so again: thank you! I've never been good at replying to comments, but I'll try to under this chapter, so if anyone has any like questions or anything else they'd like me to respond to then feel free to leave them here.
> 
> also, you may have noticed that I've added this to a series (yes I do plan on changing the name)! I intend to add oneshots and potentially shorter multichapter works from this au every so often, though not with any particular regularity, so if you'd like to see more of this then you may want to subscribe to that. already up is a oneshot of one of jon and elias's dates, taking place fairly soon after chapter four of this, and next I plan to do some scenes of jon's stay at georgie's house.
> 
> again, thank you all so much for helping me finish this, it's meant a lot to me over these past few months of lockdown, I hope you all have a nice day!


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